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PRINCETON  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINSRY 


BY    THE    HEIRS    OF    THE    LATE 


lprotC00or  fDcnrs  Cairinaton  BlcjanDer,  S>.2>.,  1L3L.H). 

BSIZ25 


'I  he    Spiritual    I'oint-of-Vicw  ;    or, 
The  Glass  Reversed. 


AN  AKHWEii 


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IMS  IK)  I'    COLENSO. 


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W     MAIIAN,   D.D.. 


ffMtMl  ifttaM  M«  HMMirily 


I)       *^' PL  ETON    AND    COMPAITT, 

4i9    *   Hi    nKOAUWAY. 
LOSVOV:    J<5   LITTLE   BlilTAlS. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1S63,  by 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO., 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the 

Southern  District  of  New  York. 


t 


PEEFACE. 


A  WORD  as  to  the  circumstances  under  which  this 
Tract  was  written  may  explain  its  general  scope  and 
object.  I  read  Bishop  Colenso's  book.  In  conversation 
with  a  friend,  I  expressed  my  opinion  of  it,  and  showed 
where  I  thought  its  principal  fallacy  lay.  The  diffi- 
culty, I  thougiit,  was  not  so  much  in  the  arguments 
advanced  by  the  writer,  as  in  his  habit  of  mind,  his 
point-of'view,  his  sjyirit,  in  short,  which  is  intensely 
infidel  and  materialistic.  The  answer  to  it  should  be 
in  a  different  spirit.  It  should  set  forth,  as  clearly  as 
possible,  the  opposite  point-of-view.  My  friend  was 
kind  enough  to  say,  that  if  I  would  write  down  briefly 
what  I  had  said  to  him,  without  encumbering  it  with 
needless  learning,  it  would  probably  be  useful  to  many 
minds;  and  might  do  better  service,  in  fact,  than  a 
more  elaborate  answer. 

I  have  endeavored  to  act  on  the  advice,  simply 
writing  down,  without  reference  to  any  other  book 
than  the  Bible,  such  thoughts  as  naturally  arose  in 
connection  with  the  general  subject.     So  for  as  Bishop 


4  PREFACE. 

Colenso's  fallacies  arise  from  ignorance,  I  have  touched 
them  lightly  :  more  learned  Keplies,  from  other  pens, 
will  do  him  ample  justice  in  that  respect.  I  have  kept 
myself,  in  the  main,  to  an  exposure  of  that  deeper  and 
more  subtle  fallacy  which  underlies,  not  Bishop  Co- 
lenso's argument  merely,  but  all  the  objections  ad- 
vanced by  the  so-called  science  of  the  day. 

M.  MAHAN. 

Geisteeal  Theological  Seminaet, 
December  19,  1862. 


CONTENTS. 


I. — Bishop  Colenso's  Positiox, 

II. — A  Few  Words  on  Inspiration, 

III. — The  Six  Days  of   Creation  ;    or,  The  Telescope 

Reversed, 

IV. — Infallibility,  Common  Sense,  Matter-of-Fact, 
Y. — Moses  and  Joshua  addressing  all  Israel — Eight 

Chapters  of  Difficulties, 

Yl. — An  Apology  to  Good  Christians  for  things  New 

and  Old, . 

YII. — Jacob's  Family  List, 

VIII. — A  Few  other  Difficulties, 

IX. — Scriptural  Arithmetic, 

X. — Facts  bearing  upon  the  Number  of  the  Israelites, 
XI. — Inference  with  regard  to  the  Historical  Char- 
acter OF  THE  Pentateuch,      .■         .         .         . 

XII. — Concluding  Remarks, 

Appendix  A. — The  First-born  compared  with  the  Whole 

Number  of  Israelites, 

Appendix  B. — The  Numbers  of  Herodotus,  . 


PAGE 

7 
12 

22 
34 

40 

52 
57 
62 
70 
83 

88 
96 

101 
105 


BISHOP   COLENSO'S  POSITIOiN'. 

Bishop  Colenso's  argument  against  the  historical 
credibility  of  the  Books  of  Moses  is  likely  to  make 
some  noise  in  the  world  :  not  that  it  contains  anything 
new,  for  his  criticisms  differ  little  in  form  or  substance 
from  those  of  innumerable  iniidels  before  him  ;  but  be- 
cause it  comes  from  a  Bishop  of  the  Church  ;  and  still 
more,  because  the  writer  professes  to  hold  the  Faith  of 
Christ,  while  laboring  to  break  down  all  belief  in  the 
sacred  records  which  bear  witness  to  that  Faith. 

He  declares,  indeed,  that  he  does  not  stumble  at 
"  the  miracles  or  supernatural  revelations  of  Almighty 
God  ;  "  he  "  could  believe  and  receive  tlie  miracles  of 
Scripture  heartily,  if  only  they  were  authenticated  hy  a 
veracious  history.''^  Unfortunately,  however,  he  does  not 
find  them  to  be  so  authenticated.  The  inference  would 
seem  to  be,  that  he  does  not  believe  in  "  the  miracles 
and  supernatural  revelations,"  and  consequently,  that 
he  rejects  the  great  mystery  of  the  Incarnation  and 
Resurrection.  Yet,  strange  to  say,  the  Bishop  will  not 
acknowledge  any  lack  of  faith  in  the  essential  Truth  of 
Christianitv.     On  the  contrary,  he  seems  to  write  and 


8  BISHOP   COLENSO'S    POSITION. 

argue  as  if  he  still  received  it,  as  if  he  were  firm  in  the 
true  Faith  of  Christ,  as  if,  in  pursuing  a  line  of  argu- 
ment by  which,  in  his  own  words,  "  not  the  Pentateuch 
only,  but  the  whole  Bible,"  "iiiay  be  "  removed,"  he 
were  only  "  discharging  a  present  duty  to  God  and  to 
the  Church." 

^N^ow,  we  cannot  enter  the  lists  with  such  a  writer, 
without  a  word  of  protest  against  the  scandalous  un- 
fairness and  inconsistency  of  the  position  he  assumes. 

It  is  the  position  of  a  sentinel  who  quietly  opens 
one  gate,  or  abandons  one  portion  of  the  wall,  to  the 
enemy,  protesting  all  the  time  that  he  is  a  true  and 
zealous  defender  of  the  fortress ;  and  that,  though  he 
may  find  it  convenient  to  open  all  the  gates  and  aban- 
don the  whole  wall,  it  would  yet  be  very  harsh  to  sus- 
pect his  fidelity  as  a  watchman,  or  ask  him  to  resign 
his  post. 

For  the  Bishop  very  plainly  intimates  that  his  crit- 
icisms are  not  to  stop  with  the  five  Books  of  Moses. 
He  says.  Preface^  p.  29  : 

"  Should  God,  in  His  Providence,  call  me  to  the 
work,  I  shall  not  shrink  from  the  duty  of  examining, 
on  behalf  of  others,  into  the  question,  in  what  way  the 
Interpretation  of  the  Wew  Testament  is  affected  by  the 
unhistorical  character  of  the  Pentateuch." 

And  if,  on  such  examination,  the  E"ew  Testament 
also  should  be  shown  to  be  "  unhistorical,"  what  is  to 
be  done  then  ?     The  Bishop  answers  : 

"  It  is  written  on  our  hearts  by  God's  own  Finger, 
as  surely  as  hy  the  hand  of  the  Apostle  in  the  Bihle^ 
that  God  is,  and  is  a  rewarder  of  them  that  diligently 
sesk  him.  *  *  *  -  The  Light  of  God's  Love  did  not 
shine  less  truly  on  pious  minds  when  Enoch  walked 


BISHOP   COLENSO'S    POSITION.  9 

with  God  of  old,  though  there  was  then  no  Bible  in 
existence^  than  it  does  now." 

It  would  appear,  then,  that  no  great  liarui  will  be 
done,  and  no  great  loss  felt,  if  the  Bible  should  be  found 
wanting  and  be  "  removed  "  altogether.  Kaj,  if  we 
are  to  credit  Bishop  Colenso,  some  good  may  be  ex- 
pected from  such  a  result :  for,  he  says,  there  are  certain 
passages  in  the  Bible,  bearing  upon  slavery  and  the 
treatment  of  slaves,  which,  to  "a  very  intelligent 
Christian  native  "  of  South  Africa,  are  positively  revolt- 
ing :  see  Introductory  RemarJcs^  p.  50.  Tlie  Bible, 
therefore,  had  better  be  put  out  of  court  at  once.  But 
will  the  "  very  intelligent  native "  be  satisfied  with 
that  ?  "When  you  have  removed  his  "  difficulties  "  with 
regard  to  certain  passages  of  the  Scriptures,  by  proving 
the  Scriptures  generally  to  be  unhistorical  and  unreli- 
able, will  he  be  more  disposed  to  abide  by  that  essen- 
tial Truth  which  is  proven  from  the  Scriptures  ?  The 
Bishop  evidently  thinks,  not.  He  sees  another  step, 
necessary  to  be  taken,  and  kindly  hints  to  us  what  that 
step  shall  be — p.  36  : 

"  I  trust  we  shall  not  rest  until  the  system  of  our 
Chicrch  he  reformed^  and  her  boundaries  at  the  same  time 
enlarged  I  to  make  her  what  a  national  Church  should 
be,  the  Mother  of  spiritual  life  to  all  within  the  realm, 
embracing,  as  far  as  possible,  all  the  ^nety^  and  learn- 
ing^ and  earnestness^  and  goodness  of  the  nation." 

"With  the  Bible  "  removed  "  from  popular  regard, 
and  with  the  Church  so  "  enlarged  "  as  to  admit  every- 
thing in  the  nation  except  positive  belief-— iox  the  Bish- 
op is  careful  not  to  include  faith  among  the  things  to 
be  embraced — we  shall  have  a  system  which  even  the 
''  very  intelligent  native  "  of  South  Africa  can  approve. 


10  BISHOP    COLENSO'S    POSITION. 

Indulging  sncli  a  hope,  it  would  be  but  natural  for 
the  Bishop  to  join  the  ranks  of  those  pious,  learned, 
earnest,  and  good  men,  patrons  of  the  Westminster  Re- 
view and  of  the  Infidel  Press  generally,  by  whom  the 
same  hope  has  been  so  long  and  so  courageously  main- 
tained. But  no  :  the  Bishop  of  Natal  sees  no  necessity 
for  this. 

"  As  a  Bishop  of  the  Church  I  dissent  entirely  from 
the  principle  laid  down  hy  some^  *  *  •»  ^j^^^  ^y^  ^j.g 
bound  by  solemn  obligations  to  maintain  certain  views 
■^  *  *  or,  at  least,  to  resign  oicr  sacred  office  in  the 
Church,  as  soon  as  ever  we  feel  it  impossible  to  hold 
them." 

He  certainly  puts  it  mildly,  when  he  speaks  of  the 
"  principle  "  as  "  laid  down  by  some^ 

It  is  much  as  if  he  had  said,  "  I  dissent  from  the 
principle  laid  down  by  some^  that  when  an  ofiicer  holds 
a  commission  in  the  army,  he  is  bound  to  maintain  the 
cause  to  which  he  is  sworn,  or,  at  least,  to  resign." 
Now,  we  know  that  there  are  "  some  "  who  lay  down 
this  principle.  Are  there  any  who  would  venture 
openly  to  contravene  it  ?  Yes  :  the  Bishop  of  Natal 
entirely  dissents  from  it.  Yet  the  Bishop,  it  would 
seem,  is  an  honorable  man.  So  sensitively  moral  is  he, 
that  the  Bible  shocks  him  continually  ;  his  conscience 
revolts  from  many  of  its  precepts  ;  his  soul  burns  with- 
in him  at  the  laxity  and  low  views  of  those  who  labor 
to  defend  it ;  his  Preface  and  Introduction  fairly  bristle 
with  professions  of  "  honesty  "  on  his  part,  and  with  in- 
sinuations of  dishonesty  against  the  mass  of  his  breth- 
ren of  the  Clergy.  For,  like  the  majority  of  his  school, 
he  regards  no  man  as  sincere  who  ictkes  pains  to  solve 
the  knotty  questions  of  the  Bible ;  or  who,  in  cases 


BISHOP   COLENSO'S    POSITION.  11 

wliicli  prove  too  hard  for  him,  is  willing  to  fall  back 
upon  simple  faith.  The  only  liouest  men,  iii  the  Bish- 
op's estimation,  are  those  who  regard  all  explanations 
as  mere  evasions,  unless  they  are  satisfactory  to  every- 
body, and  meet  all  possible  objections.  An  ingenious 
solution  is,  to  his  mind,  necessarily  a  false  one.  A 
learned  solution  is  too  elaborate  and  far-fetched.  A 
solution  which  makes  allowance  for  habits  of  mind  and 
speech  so  peculiar  and  so  remote  from  ours  as  were 
those  of  the  sacred  w^riters  is  set  down  at  once  as  so- 
phistical and  evasive. 

jSTow,  in  dealing  with  a  critic  who  professes  so  high 
a  standard  of  honesty  and  plain  dealing,  it  is  but  fair  to 
ask,  What  is  his  position  in  reference  to  the  great  ques- 
tions which  are  involved  in  the  discussion  ?  And  when 
we  find  that  his  position  is  in  the  highest  degree  equiv- 
ocal— that  he  holds  his  j)lace  as  a  Bishop  in  conscious 
violation  of  his  ordination  vows — that  he  reconciles  this 
sacrilege  to  his  conscience  by  most  palpable  evasion 
of  the  meaning  of  plain  words  ;  when  we  find,  in  short, 
that  he  "  dissents  from  "  that  common  rule  of  honesty 
which  compels  a  man  in  office  either  to  acknowledge 
the  obligations  of  that  office,  or  else,  at  least,  to  resign, 
we  surely  cannot  allow  much  weight  to  his  professions 
of  sincerity  and  plahi  dealing.  Paine,  in  his  ''  Age  of 
Reason,"  makes  similar  professions  of  honesty  and 
piety,  on  his  part ;  he  makes  similar  appeals  to  the 
piety  and  honesty  of  the  reader. 


II. 

A  FEW  WORDS  ON  INSPIRATION. 

I  HAYE  said,  the  Bishop  and  the  Infidel  are  alike  in 
their  professions  of  piety  and  sincerity.  If  we  examine 
a  little  farther,  we  shall  find  that  there  is  no  real  differ- 
ence in  their  arguments,  or  their  object. 

The  object  of  both  is  to  convict  the  Bible  of  so 
many  mistakes  in  matters  of  fact,  and  of  so  many  lapses, 
even  in  morality,  that  it  shall  lose  all  credit  as  a  Divine 
authority  in  questions  of  religion. 

In  other  words,  they  aim  to  demonstrate  that  the 
Scriptures  are  not  insjpired^  in  any  such  sense  as  would 
entitle  them  to  be  called  hifallihle. 

To  prove  this  proposition,  the  method  of  both  writ- 
ers is  substantially  the  same  :  the  same  fallacy  under- 
lies the  arguments  of  both. 

They  take  the  words  infallible  and  insjnred  in  an 
absolute  sense  :  not  in  any  sense  claimed  by  the  Scrip- 
tures themselves,  or  admitted  by  the  advocates  of  their 
infallibility. 

Thus,  to  give  a  single  instance  from  Bishop  Colen-' 
so :  speaking  of  the  law  regulating  slavery,  in  Exod. 
xxi.  4,  20,  21,  the  writer  observes,  p.  50  : 

"  I  shall  never  forget  the  revulsion  of  feeling  with 
which  a  very  intelligent  Christian  native,  with  whose 
help  I  was  translating  these  words  into  the  Zulu  tongue, 


A   FEW    WORDS    ON    INSPIKATION.  13 

first  heard  them  as  words  said  to  be  uttered  by  the  same 
great  and  gracious  Being,  whom  I  was  teaching  him  to 
trust  in  and  adore.  His  whole  soul  revolted,  ifcc.  .  .  . 
I  relieved  his  difficulty  and  my  own  for  the  present  by 
telling  him  that  .  .  .  such  words  as  these  were  written 
down  by  Moses,  and  helieved  hy  liira  to  have  hecii  divine- 
ly given  to  hira^  because  the  thought  of  them  arose  in  his 
heart,  a^  he  conceived^  by  the  inspiration  of  God,"  &c. 

Here  the  Bishop  teaches  his  "  Christian  native  "  to  re- 
ject the  idea  of  a  Divine  Inspiration,  when  a  single  word 
from  the  Bible,  explaining  in  what  sense  and  for  what 
purpose  God  gave  the  Law,  would  have  removed  tlie 
"  difficulty.''  and  would  at  the  same  time  have  protect- 
ed the  doctrine  of  Inspiration.  For  the  Scriptures  de- 
clare expressly  that  the  Mosaic  code  was  not  given  as  a 
perfect  law ;  that  it  was  not  meant  to  be  a  finality  ; 
that  it  was  a  mere  provisional  dispensation  for  a  nation 
of  stiff  necks  and  hard  hearts,  who,  if  a  better  law  had 
been  given,  would  have  absolutely  refused  it.  Apply 
this  truth  to  the  enactment  in  Exod.  xxi.  21.  It  was 
undoubtedly  hard  on  slaves,  that  a  master  might  chas- 
tise them  with  any  degree  of  severity,  provided  ordy 
that  he  should  not  cause  them  to  die  under  his  hand. 
But  was  not  this  proviso  an  improvement  on  the  law, 
or  custom,  that  existed  before  ?  Was  it  not  a  merciful 
addition  to  the  practice  that  prevailed  generally  among 
the  most  enlightened  nations  of  antiquity  i  Among  the 
Romans,  a  master,  if  he  chose,  might  kill  his  slave  out- 
right. Lideed,  a  father  had  similar  power  of  life  and 
death  over  his  son.  If  Moses,  therefore,  reduced  this 
power  a  little  in  the  case  of  the  Jews,  and  made  their 
law  of  slavery  more  humane  than  that  of  other  nations ; 
if,  in  short,  lie  made  the  law  as  good  as  they  could  bear, 


14  A   FEW    WORDS    ON    INSPIRATION. 

was  there  anything  in  all  this  to  preclude  the  idea  of 
Inspiration  ? 

But  the  Bishop  objects  to  those  severities  in  the  law 
which  Moses  still  left  in  it.  Had  it  been  given  by  God, 
he  thinks,  it  would  have  been  freed  altogether  from 
every  objectionable  feature.  A  slave  would  not  have 
been  spoken  of  as  mere  "  money."  A  master  would  not 
have  been  allowed  "  to  go  unpunished,  because  the  vic- 
tim of  the  brutal  usage  survived  a  few  hours." 

Kow,  there  is  a  vast  difference  between  saying  that 
a  slave  is  his  master's  'money ^  and  saying  that  he  is 
"  mere  money ;  "  as  much  so  as  there  is  between  calling 
a  working  man  an  operative  and  calling  him  a  mere 
operative.  The  latter  phrase,  in  both  instances,  is  one 
of  disparagement.  The  former  only  expresses  in  plain 
words  a  serviceable  relation.  But,  to  let  this  pass,  does 
Bishop  Colenso  think  that  God  never  speaks,  without 
speaking  His  whole  nnindf  If  so,  his  notion  of  Inspi- 
ration is  directly  the  reverse  of  that  which  is  laid  do'svn 
in  the  Scriptures.  ^Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that 
the  Bible  professes  to  be  a  grctdual  revelation  :  that 
line  iLfoii  line^  and  precept  upon  precept^  here  a  little 
and  there  a  little^  each  later  portion  being  an  advance 
upon  the  parts  preceding,  is  the  plan  upon  which  its 
vast  system  of  instruction  is  built  up.  And  common 
sense  assures  us  that  this  plan  is  the  only  rational  one, 
in  dealing  with  frail  men,  and  the  only  one  that  can  be 
called  in  any  true  sense  Divine.  Draco  gave  the  Athe- 
nians a  code  of  laws  so  just  that  no  man  could  endure 
them.  Solon  gave  them  a  code  which  they  were  able 
to  bear.  Which  was  the  more  God-like  of  the  two  leg- 
islators ?  Which  had  the  larger  share  of  that  gracious 
liglit,  that   light   of  celestial   wisdom  illumining  but 


A   FEW    WOKDS    ON   INSPIKATION.  15 

not  confounding,  whicli  shines  from  the  Face  of  the 
merciful  Father  of  Mankind  ? 

But  to  return  to  the  main  point :  What  has  been 
shown  in  this  example  is  true  of  Bishop  Colenso's 
reasoning  in  generah  He  is  possessed  with  the  idea 
that  Inspiration,  as  predicated  of  the  Scriptures,  can 
never  inspire  the  utterance  of  half-truths,  or  truths 
imperfectly  expressed,  or  truths  needing  the  light  of 
other  truths  to  make  them  intelligible.  In  short,  be- 
cause God  is  perfect,  everything  that  comes  from  him 
must  needs  be  perfect  also.  Though  all  nature  is  a  rid- 
dle, and  yet  comes  from  God  ;  though  the  human  mind 
is  a  riddle,  and  yet  reflects  His  image  ;  though  man,  in 
his  highest  illumination,  can  see  but  darkly,  as  through 
a  darkened  glass :  yet  the  Divine  word — hecaiise  it 
comes  from  God, — must  have  no  riddles  in  it,  no  seem- 
ing contradictions,  no  difficulties,  no  opaque  spots,  no 
paradoxes,  nothing  that  the  unlearned  and  unstable  can 
wrest  to  their  own  destruction. 

The  ScrijDtures  lay  claim  to  no  such  Inspiration. 
]^or  does  any  advocate  of  the  Scriptures  contend  for 
anything  of  the  kind.  We  claim  that  all  Scripture  is 
given  by  Inspiration  of  God  ;  that  the  sacred  writers 
spake,  "not  by  the  will  of  man,"  but  "as  they  were 
moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost ;  "  that  there  is  nothing  in 
the  Bible  which  is  not  "  profitable,"  if  rightly  under- 
stood ;  and  consequently,  that,  though  some  portions 
of  the  Word  may  be  more  edifying  than  others,  yet 
every  portion  has  the  Divine  sanction,  and,  whether 
true  or  not  from  all  points  of  view,  whether  true  or 
not  considered  in  itself,  is  infallibly  ti'ue  from  the 
spiritual  point  of  view  ;  that  is,  considered  in  its  bearing 
upon  the  aim  and  purport  of  the  Scriptures  in  general. 


16  A   FEW   WOEDS   ON   INSPIEATION. 

But  does  this  claim  imply  that  there  are  to  be  no 
difficulties  in  Scripture  ?  JSTot  at  all.  Difficulties  are 
inherent  in  all  literature :  and  the  Bible,  being  not  a 
Book  merely,  but  a  vast  literature,  and  a  literature 
belonging  to  an  age,  and  people,  and  tongue,  of  which 
we  know  little  from  other  sources,  must,  in  the  nature 
of  things,  present  peculiar  and  almost  insuperable 
difficulties.  It  is  enough  that  these  difficulties  occur 
chiefly  in  questions  of  literary  or  scientific  curiosity, 
which  may  be  decided  this  w^ay  or  that,  without  in  the 
least  aflecting  the  main  object  for  which  the  Scriptures 
were  written. 

For  example,  there  are  corruptions  and  interpo- 
lations in  Scripture,  some  known  to  be  such,  and  some 
(perhaps)  unknown.  There  are  also  Books,  such  as 
Job,  which  may  be  matter-of-fact  history,  or  raay  be 
poetry  of  that  kind  which  is  the  spirit  of  history. 
There  are  also  certain  narratives,  evidently  historical, 
—the  Creation,  for  example,  or  the  Deluge, — which  are 
yet  so  couched  in  idiomatic  or  symbolic  phrases  that 
wise  interpreters  have  doubted,  from  Origen's  day 
downward,  whether  they  mean  what  on  the  surface 
they  seem  to  mean.  On  this  point,  I  shall  have  more 
to  say  presently.  It  will  be  enough  to  say  here  that, 
should  a  sound  criticism  eventually  add  to  the  num- 
ber of  known  interpolations  ;  should  the  Books  now 
thought  to  be  sacred  dramas  be  proved  to  be  such ; 
should  it  be  demonstrated,  by  learned  examination, 
that  the  more  ancient  parts  of  the  Bible  need  to  be 
translated,  not  merely  from  the  Hebrew  into  English, 
but  from  Hebrew  popular  idioms  into  the  idioms  of  an 
age  more  arithmetical  and  exact — still,  nothing  is 
proved  against  either  the  Truth  or  the  Divine  Inspira- 


A   FEW    WOKDS    ON    INSPIRATION.  17 

tion  of  the  Scriptures.  We  merely  learn  to  drop  those 
portions  which  are  interpolated,  and  to  leave  them  out 
of  the  account.  And  as  to  other  portions,  we  may 
have  to  abandon  a  surface  sense,  which  is  of  no  par- 
ticular importance,  and  to  take  in  its  stead  a  deeper 
and  more  spiritual  sense. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  would  it  not  have  been  better 
to  have  so  inspired  the  Scriptures  as  to  leave  no  place 
for  difficulties  of  the  kinds  above-mentioned  ? 

I  answer,  No.  Of  the  two  principal  courses  which 
InsjDiration  might  take  with  a  view  to  benefit  all  ages, 
the  course  that  has  actually  been  taken  is  decidedly  the 
better. 

Inspiration  might  have  enabled  one,  two,  or  three 
minds  to  write  in  one  great  book,  and  in  language 
scientifically  correct,  a  revelation  of  Divine  Truth  in 
which  no  contradiction,  or  seeming  contradiction, 
could  possibly  have  been  detected.  In  such  a  case,  as 
it  would  be  necessary,  not  only  to  make  the  book  per- 
fect, but  to  keep  it  so,  a  perpetual  miracle  would  have 
been  needed  to  guard  against  those  verbal  errors, 
omissions,  corruptions,  and  interpolations  to  which  all 
writings  are  subject  in  the  lapse  of  time.  Another 
perpetual  miracle  would  have  been  needed  to  enable 
translators  to  do  their  work  aright.  A  third  perpetual 
miracle  would  have  been  needed  in  behalf  of  interpreters. 
For  it  is  obvious  that  a  work  scientifically  accurate 
may  be  spoiled  by  the  least  error,  or  blemish,  or  mis- 
interpretation. The  introduction  of  a  single  iota  into 
the  l^icene  Creed,  for  example,  would  change  the  Truth 
of  God  into  an  Arian  lie.  And  if  a  great  Book  were 
written  with  the  scientific  precision  of  the  Nicene 
Creed,  nothing  short  of  a  standing  miracle  could  keep 


18  A   FEW    WOEDS   ON    INSPIEATION. 

it  free  from  corruptions   of  the  most  immanageable 
kind. 

Besides  which,  such  a  Book,  if  written,  would  never 
have  been  read.  To  the  mass  of  men,  it  wonld  have 
been  less  intelligible,  and  less  interesting,  than  Aris- 
totle's Ethics. 

Rejecting  this  course,  therefore,  as  nnadapted  to  the 
great  end  in  view.  Inspiration  took  another  and  a  wiser 
course.  It  inspired  many  minds,  in  many  ages,  to 
write  many  books,  in  many  varieties  of  style,  the  work 
growing  to  snch  a  bulk  that  the  errors  of  copyists, 
translators,  and  interpreters,  with  all  the  blots  and 
blemishes  of  time,  are  practically  neutralized  in  the 
greatness  of  the  whole.  Thus,  all  the  sewers  of  earth 
emjDty  into  the  ocean,  yet  the  ocean  is  not  defiled.  All 
of  earth's  vapors  steam  up  into  the  sunshine,  yet  the 
sunshine  remains  pure.  On  the  same  principle,  the 
very  bulk  of  the  Sacred  Writings,  their  variety,  their 
exuberance  of  life,  their  luxury  of  detail,  their  half- 
truths  in  one  place  dovetailing  so  admirably  into  half- 
truths  in  another,  their  broken  lines  here  so  marvel- 
lously pieced  out  hj  broken  lines  there,  in  short,  the 
wondrous  harmonies  that  come  out  from  so  many 
seeming  discords — this  vastness  and  manifoldness  of 
the  inspired  Literature  secures  it,  without  miracle, 
against  suffering,  as  a  whole,  from  its  occasional  cor- 
ruptions. It  is  so  inspired  as  to  be  self-adjusting,  self- 
purifying,  and,  to  those  who  consult  it  on  its  own 
principles,  self-interpreting.  It  has  salt  enough  in  it 
to  sweeten,  not  merely  its  own  waters,  but  any  foreign 
admixture  that  may  accidentally  flow  in. 

A  man  of  moderate  w^ealth  is  obliged  to  have  his 
property  insured.    A  millionnaire  has  so  much,  and  such 


A   FEW    WORDS   ON    INSPIRATION.  19 

varied  property,  that'  it  insures  itself.  There  is  some- 
tliing  of  the  same  principle  in  the  riches  of  the  Divine 
Oracles.  Their  superabundant  variety — to  say  nothing 
of  other  features — constitutes,  as  it  were,  a  policy  of 
self-insurance. 

To  speak  without  metaphor,  it  is  worthy  of  God, 
and  in  consonance  with  all  we  know  of  the  character 
of  God,  that,  if  He  condescends  to  inspire  rnen  at  all. 
He  should  inspire  them  as  men  speakinrj  to  men : 
not  as  critics,  not  as  word-catchers,  not  as  grammarians, 
not  as  arithmeticians,  not  as  logicians ;  but  simply  as 
true  men,  speaking  truths,  which,  for  the  most  part, 
were  in  advance  of  their  age,  but  which  had  to  be 
couched  in  the  mind  and  idiom  of  the  age  to  which 
they  spoke.  Men  thus  inspired  would  of  course  speak 
imperfectly,  and  in  a  certain  sense,  inaccurately.  This 
being  granted,  it  is  again  worthy  of  God,  that  He — 
knowing  the  imperfections  and  inaccuracies  of  human 
mind  and  human  speech — should  iind  the  remedy  in  a 
vast  variety  of  utterances,  complementing,  explaining, 
and  guarding  one  another,  rather  than  in  one  scien- 
tifically exact  utterance,  which  nought  but  a  perpetual 
miracle  could  keep  exact. 

Besides  which,  an  inspired  book  for  men  ought  to 
be  a  readable  book — a  pleasant  book  to  read.  The 
Bible  is  such.  It  has  been  more  read,  oftener  quoted, 
better  remembered,  than  all  other  books  put  together. 
But  if  it  had  been  wi'itten  to  suit  critics  and  word- 
catchers,  nobody  else  would  have  touched  it. 

Besides  which,  again  :  an  inspired  book  ought  to 
be  a  book  to  make  men  tliink.  But  no  book  really 
serves  this  purpose  unless  it  deals  in  hints,  and  half- 
utterances,  and  seeming  paradoxes,  as  well  as  in  open 


20  A   FEW   WORDS   ON   INSPLRATION. 

manifestations  of  tlie  truth.  A  perfectly  easy  book  to 
read  is  read  once  and  no  more.  It  is  read,  not  studied. 
The  Bible  is  so  written  as  to  stimulate  study  :  more  so 
than  any  other  book  or  books  known  to  mankind. 

Besides  which,  once  more :  a  book  coming  from 
God  ought  to  be  in  a  certain  analogy  with  Nature, 
which  is  also  His  book.  But  ]^ature,  we  know, 
abounds  in  difficulties,  paradoxes,  and  seeming  contra- 
dictions. Bishop  Butler  has  demonstrated  that  the 
difficulties  of  the  Bible  and  those  of  l^ature  are  in  a 
wonderful  way  analogous,  and  complementary  to  one 
another. 

For  these  and  like  reasons,  the  plan  of  inspiring  a 
great  literature,  and  of  inspiring  it  in  such  a  way  as  to 
make  it  a  catholic  literature,  capable  of  translation  into 
all  languages  without  risk  of  serious  error,  seems  better 
and  wiser  than  any  other  imaginable  plan. 

But  a  plan  like  this  necessarily  involves  a  theory 
of  Inspiration  in  accordance  with  it. 

It  involves  not  perfection  in  any  one  part,  con- 
sidered in  itself;  as,  for  example,  that  the  historical 
books  should  be  ^'  historical,"  in  the  onodern  sense 
of  the  word.  A  perfectly  true  history  may  contain 
admixtures-  which  require  a  sound  and  cautious  criti- 
cism to  determine  whether  they  are  literal  facts  or 
symbolic  representations  of  large  groups  of  facts.  And 
we  know  that  early  historians  delighted  in  such  admix- 
tures. On  the  other  hand,  a  history  may  be  quite 
accurate  in  dates  and  matters  of  fact,  yet,  taken  as  a 
whole,  may  convey  an  enormous  lie.  We  are  accus- 
tomed in  modern  times  to  this  latter  stylo  of  history. 
Our  canon  of  the  "  historical "  excludes  everything  but 
literal  facts.     But   mankind,   in   primitive   times,  ac- 


A   FEW    WORDS    ON    INSPIRATION.  21 

knowledged  no  such  canon.  Wliere  we  philosophize  in 
reflections,  they  philosoj^hized  in  symbols.  This,  of 
course,  creates  a  difficulty  in  dealing  with  early  writers. 
It  renders  it  necessary  for  the  interpreter  to  be  con- 
stantly on  his  guard.  We  have  to  enter,  not  merely 
into  words,  but  if  possible  into  mind,  quite  different  in 
all  its  habits  from  the  mere  modern  mind.  Our  great 
effort,  in  short,  is,  in  dealing  with  ancient  writings,  to 
put  ourselves  to  the  utmost  at  the  ancient  point-of-view. 
And  if  those  Avritings  should  be  sacred,  as  well  as 
ancient,  the  difficulty  in  some  points  may,  for  a  long 
time  at  least,  be  absolutely  insuperable. 

Now,  Bishop  Colenso,  like  other  skeptics,  allows  for 
nothing  of  this  sort.  He  assumes  a  modern,  rationalis- 
tic, matter-of-fact  point-of-view.  From  that  he  frames 
his  own  theory  of  Inspiration.  From  that  he  lays  down 
his  own  canons  of  the  "  historical."  What  accords  not 
with  these  canons  he  calls  "  unhistorical."  What  he 
calls  "unhistorical,"  he  therefore  judges  to  be  "unin- 
spired." 

Tlie  assumption  underlies  the  whole  of  his  argument. 
I  shall  be  obliged  to  recur  to  it  more  than  once,  to 
make  my  meaning  clear.  For  the  present,  I  will  en- 
deavor to  illustrate  it  by  considering  one  of  the  first 
and  chief  "  difficulties "  in  the  Historical  Eooks  of 
Moses. 


III. 


THE  SIX  DATS  OF  CEEATION ;  OR,  THE  TELESCOPE 

REVERSED. 

The  Mosaic  account  of  the  creation  of  tiie  world  is 
not  in  harmony  with  the  results  of  scientific  investi- 
gation. 

It  is,  therefore,  not  a  true  account. 

It  is,  therefore,  not  entitled  to  be  called  an  inspired 
or  infallible  account. 

Such  is  the  position  of  the  Lifidel,"^  contemplating 
the  Scriptures  from  what  he  calls  a  scientific  point-of- 
view.  In  answering  the  objection,  I  will  not  question 
the  results  of  modern  investigation.  I  ^^'ill  assume  on 
trust — for,  not  being  a  student  of  science,  I  hiiow  noth- 
ing about  it — that  the  world  was  originally  a  chaos,  a 
huge  bulk  of  seething  mist ;  that  in  the  course  of  mil- 
lions of  ages  it  cooled  down  to  something  approaching 
to  its  present  size  and  form  ;  that  in  millions  of  ages 
more,  light  penetrated  the  opaque  atmosphere,  and 
vast  wedges  of  flinty  rock  emerged  from  the  heaving 

*  Bishop  Oolenso  merely  alludes  to  this  and  other  difficulties 
connected  with  Science.  I  have  given  a  larger  space  to  it,  because 
it  enables  me  to  illustrate,  more  fully  than  other  instances,  the 
difference  between  a  spiritual  and  a  material  point-of-view. 


THE    SIX   DAYS   OF   CKEATION.  23 

waters  ;  that  in  other  millions  of  ages  the  rock  clothed 
itself  in  soil,  and  the  soil  adorned  itself  with  a  rich 
plumage  of  vegetable  life  ;  that  in  millions  of  ages 
more,  other  rocks  formed,  and  other  soils  appeared,  witli 
other  and  varied  garbs,  while  the  waters  teemed  with 
the  lower  forms  of  animal  life,  and  from  the  waters  the 
skies  were  colonized,  and  strange  amphibious  creatures 
crawled  out  upon  the  land  ;  that  finally,  millions  of 
ages  still  revolving,  with  new  layers  of  rock  and  soil, 
the  higher  orders  of  animal  life  appeared,  and  among 
them  rose  up  one  who  was  destined  to  be  their  king,  a 
creature  not  pachydermatous  or  strong-clawed,  but  thin- 
skinned  and  defenceless,  and,  except  for  a  big  brain  and 
flexile  tongue,  the  most  helpless  thing  that  moved. 

All  this,  I  say,  I  will  supjpose  to  be  in  substance 
true.  But  if  true,  God,  when  He  inspired  Moses,  knew 
it  to  be  true.  Why,  then,  did  He  inspire  his  servant 
to  write  for  all  ages  an  account  which  in  matter-of-fact 
points  seems  to  differ  from  all  this  ? 

I  answer  that,  if  the  above  account  be  true,  God 
knew  it  to  be  true.  But  He  knew  also  that,  in  course 
of  time,  man  would  find  it  out  for  himself.  There  was 
no  need  then  of  a  matter-of-fact  revelation.  Moreover, 
if  such  a  revelation  should  be  made  to  the  age  of 
Moses,  the  age  would  reject  it,  not  being  prepared  for 
it ;  and  the  whole  scheme  of  Inspiration  would  be 
strangled  at  the  birth.  But,  while  a  matter-of-fact 
revelation  would  be  needless,  some  revealed  account 
might  be  useful,  to  guard  the  people  of  God  against 
the  false  and  foolish  cosmogonies  of  the  heathen. 

Here,  then,  is  reason  enough  at  once,  not  for  inspir- 
ing a  false  account  of  Creation,  but  for  clothing  the 
true  account  in  language  and  ideas  suited  to  the  age. 


24  THE    SIX   DAYS    OF  CREATION  ; 

K  I  wished  to  give  a  young  cliild  a  true  notion  of  the 
distance  of  the  sun,  I  would  not  tell  him  the  sun  is 
millions  of  miles  away ;  it  would  answer  the  purpose 
better  to  say  himdreds  of  miles.  For  a  child  has  some 
idea  of  what  hundreds  mean.  The  word  millions 
would  only  serve  to  bewilder  and  perplex  him. 

But  further :  if  God  knew  the  above  account  of 
Creation  to  be  the  true  one ;  and  if  He  knew,  more- 
over, that  man  would  find  it  out ;  He  also  knew  that 
the  discovery,  when  made,  would  be  perilous  to  man's 
faith.  The  idea  of  millions  on  millions  of  ages  is  so 
vast,  so  far  beyond  all  finite  imagination,  that  it  seems 
almost  to  run  into  the  idea  of  Eternity  itself.  Indeed, 
human  language  can  describe  Eternity  only  by  accu- 
mulations of  terms,  which  really  are  descriptive  of 
Time,  and  Time  only.  "We  say  Sgecula  Sseculorum — 
ages  of  ages — the  very  term  that  describes  the  geologi- 
cal eras.  There  is  a  danger,  then,  that  when  the  finite 
mind  begins  to  contemplate  Time  as  practically  an 
infinite  duration,  it  should  slide  into  the  easy  error  of 
regarding  it  as  really  infinite.  A  world  so  old  as  ours 
seems,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a  world  without 
beginning.  It  seems  virtually  eternal.  The  notion  of 
a  Maker,  if  not  absolutely  banished,  is  at  all  events 
put  so  far  off,  that  it  becomes  vague  and  inoperative. 
In  short,  the  Creature,  by  being  clothed  in  these 
stupendous  figures,  assumes  a  bulk  and  mysterious 
grandeur  which  eft'ectually  shuts  out  the  view  of  the 
Creator. 

Again :  the  notion  of  slow  and  long-continued 
growth,  of  that  growth  by  which  continents  are  built 
up  in  millions  of  years  from  the  bottoms  of  great  seas, 
is  one  that  appals  and  almost  stupefies  the  mind.     Of 


OK,    THE   TELESCOPE    REVERSED.  26 

course,  it  is  not  really  inconsistent  with  the  idtja  of 
One  who  speaks  and  it  is  done,  but  practically  it  ren- 
ders that  idea  extremely  difficult  to  entertain.  The 
more  it  takes  hold  of  the  mind,  the  more  it  inclines  us 
to  put  Growth  for  God :  to  adopt  some  theory  of 
development,  and  in  the  height  of  scientilic  exaltation 
to  relapse  into  the  philosophy  of  poor  Topsey,  and  to 
say  of  the  whole  world,  "  It  was  not  made  but  grew." 

Again :  the  human  point-of-view  is  always  practi- 
cally to  the  mind  a  central  point-of-view.  Whichever 
way  we  look,  the  horizon  is  equi-distant  around  us ; 
and  the  ages  past  are  necessarily  the  measure  of  the 
ages  yet  to  come.  Science  reveals  to  us  billions  of 
years  behind.  How  can  we  help  expecting  billions  of 
years  before  us  ?  The  great  lesson  of  Science  is  that 
"  all  things  continue  now  as  they  were  from  the  be- 
ginning." The  same  minute  shell-fish  w^hicli  built  up 
so  large  a  portion  of  the  land  that  now  is,  are  working 
in  Ocean's  depths  as  industriously  as  ever.  Niagara, 
after  sawing  its  way  up  through  the  rock  some  millions 
of  years,  has  hardly.yet  accomplished  more  than  half 
of  its  day's  work.  The  great  ice  rivers  of  the  ]N"ortli, 
which  have  supplied  the  world  with  boulders,  are  still 
crawling  on  at  the  same  snail's  pace.  "  Where,  tlien, 
is  the  promise  of  His  coming  ?  "  What  prospect  is 
there,  that  a  w^orld  which  has  lasted  so  long,  and  is  still 
so  vigorous,  shall  ever  come  to  an  end  ? 

Science,  in  this  way,  does  not  teach  infidelity.  I 
accuse  it  of  nothing  of  the  sort.  The  true  man  of 
science  is  also  a  man  of  faith  :  and  as  physical  ideas 
loom  up,  in  his  telescope,  in  proportions  of  overwhelm- 
ing bulk  and  grandeur,  he  has  the  wisdom  to  reverse 
the  telescope,  and  to  look  at  them  occasionally  from  the 
2 


26  THE   SIX   DAYS    OF  CREATION; 

spiritual  point-of-view.  The  glass  whicli  magnifies  a 
Ilea  into  an  elepiiant,  can  likewise  Qninify  an  elephant 
into  a  Ilea.  Science,  therefore,  is  not  necessarily  a  fos- 
terer of  unbelief.  Infidelity  is  the  resort  of  mere 
sciolists,  of  men  who  look  at  things  only  from  one 
point-of-view,  of  men  w^ho  (as  the  AYise  Man  says, 
Eccles.  iii.  11)  have  "  the  world  so  set  in  their  heart " 
that  they  cannot  '■'  find  out  the  work  that  God  maketh." 

Still,  as  the  mass  of  men  are  impatient  and  one- 
sided, easily  satisfied  with  one  glance  at  a  truth, 
science  is  unquestionably  perilous  to  Faith.  It  exalts 
the  creature,  and  so  far  tends  to  disparage  the  Creator. 
It  fixes  the  eye  upon  the  greatness  of  material  things, 
and  so  far  tends  to  blind  us  to  spiritual  things. 

Isow,  to  return  to  the  argument :  if  God,  in  the  days 
of  Moses,  foresaw  the  brilliant  results  of  modern  inves- 
tigation ;  if  He  foresaw  that  man  would  make  discov- 
eries which,  contemplated  from  a  human  point-of-view, 
would  be  perilous  to  his  Faith,  then  it  would  not 
become  God,  as  a  Father,  to  ante-date  these  dangerous 
discoveries.  Sufiicient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof. 
The  trial  of  the  nineteenth  century  would  come  soon 
enough.  So  far  as  He  thought  proper  to  teach  man  a 
cosmogony,  He  would  teach  it  in  such  terms  as  would 
be  the  most  edifying  and  least  dangerous.  He  would 
teach  it  also  in  terms  which,  if  not  scientifically  exact, 
should  be  found,  when  the  time  came,  to  be  at  least 
true  in  substance  :  true  from  the  spiritual,  if  not  from 
the  material,  point-of-view. 

Hence  the  main  features  of  the  First  Chapter  of 
Genesis.  There  is  a  chaos  ;  then  breath,  motion,  light, 
vivifying  the  chaos  ;  then  waters  separating  from  w^a- 
ters,  clouds  above  and  the  great  sea  beneath  ;  the7i  the 


OR,    TUE   TELESCOPE   REVERSED.  27 

dry  land  emerging  from  the  waters,  and  clothing  itself 
in  grass,  and  herb,  and  fruit  tree  yielding  fruit ;  then 
light  holders  (according  to  the  Hebrew)  in  the  firma- 
ment of  the  heavens ;  thai  life  in  the  waters,  in  the  air, 
and  in  the  earth  ;  then  higher  types  of  life,  not  water- 
bred  and  oval,  but  earth-bred  and  mammal,  from  amid 
which,  by  a  special  creation  and  special  gift,  cometh 
lordly  man. 

So  far  the  account  is  true  from  every  point-of-view. 
Science  may  enlarge  it  and  enrich  it,  but  to  improve  it 
is  impossible. 

Moreover,  there  is  a  beautiful  gradation*  in  these 
successive  acts.  "  It  is  evening  and  it  is  morning,"  as 
each  follows  each.  Thei'e  are  no  abrupt  transitions.  It 
is  not  day  following  nujld^  and  nigld  following  day^  but 
it  is  Day  rolling  into  Day,  as  the  long  waves  of  the  sea 
roll  into  one  another,  following  ever  the  line  of  beauty, 
running  down  the  curved  slope  of  Evening,  and  up  the 
curved  steep  of  Morning,  a  succession  of  teeming  pe- 
riods continuous  but  distinct. 

If  Science  teaches  anything,  it  teaches  substantially 
the  same  lesson. 

But  then,  to  mark  these  periods,  the  word  Day  is 
used :  and  a  Day,  scientifically,  is  but  twenty-four 
hours,  a  diurnal  revolution  of  the  earth  upon  its  axis. 
I  wonder  it  never  occurs  to  these  word-catchers,  that 
as  a  pure  matter  of  fact  the  earth  has  no  axis ;  and 
that  Science,  at  some  future  day,  may  catch  them  trip- 
ping in  their  speech  even  as  they  catch  Moses.     But, 

*  Hugh  Miller,  in  his  Testimony  of  the  Bods,  seems  to  assume 
a  succession  of  catastrophes.  I  believe,  however,  that  the  general 
drift  of  science  favors  the  idea  of  a  continuous  series  of  ages  run- 
ning gradually  into  one  another. 


28  THE   SIX   DAYS    OF  CREATION; 

to  let  this  pass :  is  it  not  a  siiflBcient  answer  that  the 
word  Day^  not  only  in  Scripture  but  in  all  human 
writings,  is  perfectly  cajyalle  of  being  used  in  an  un- 
scientific sense  ?  And  if  it  is  capable  of  being  so  used, 
we  are  not  bound  in  any  case  to  confine  its  meaning, 
unless  the  nature  of  that  case  should  seem  to  require  it. 

Above  all,  is  it  not  sufficient  that  an  inspired  writer 
of  the  E'ew  Testament,  2  Pet.  iii.  3-8,  foreseeing  that 
there  would  "  come  in  the  last  days  scoffers,"  and  that 
the  burden  of  their  scoffing  w^ould  be  the  great  maxim 
of  modern  science — "  all  things  continue  as  they  were 
from  the  beginning  of  creation," — distinctly  refers  for 
their  confutation  to  the  great  act  of  creation,  and  re- 
minds them,  in  that  connection^  that  "one  day  is  with 
the  Lord  as  a  thousand  years,  and  a  thousand  years  as 
one  day  "  ? 

The  Apostle  refers  them,  in  other  words,  to  the  con- 
templation of  Time  from  a  Divine  point-of-view. 

And  so  I  come  to  the  main  question  before  us.  It 
is  simply  this : 

If  God  foreknew  that  man  would  at  some  day  dis- 
cover a  cosmogony  such  as  that  which  Geology  pro- 
fesses to  have  found ;  and  if  He  foresaw  that  this  cos- 
mogony, from  the  vastness  of  its  numbers  and  the  bulk 
of  its  physical  ideas,  would  prove  perilous  to  Faith ; 
what,  humanly  speaking,  would  be  the  best  mode  of 
guarding  against  this  danger  ? 

I  answer :  the  best  way  would  be — of  course,  I 
speak  humanly — to  furnish  man  beforehand  with  a  cos- 
mogony, which  should  enable  him,  as  it  were,  to  re- 
verse the  telescope,  and  to  contemplate  creation  from 
the  Divine  point-of-view. 

In  our  eyes,  a  billion  of  years  is  a  very  great  mat- 


OK,    THE   TELESCOPE   REVERSED.  29 

ter.  Ill  God's  eyes  it  is  a  very  small  matter.  With  us 
the  duratioD  of  Time  seems  hardly  short  of  an  eternity. 
With  God,  it  is  a  mere  breath,  a  mere  vapor,  a  passing 
thought,  a  thing  of  infinitely  less  duration  than  the 
word,  "  Let  there  be  light."  For  heaven  and  earth 
pass  away,  but  His  word  passeth  not  away.  How- 
ever long  a  time,  therefore,  the  world  was  in  making 
or  in  growing,  yet  let  the  scoffer  remember  that  a  word 
of  God  is  something  which  endures  still  longer :  for 
"  hy  the  word  of  God  the  heavens  were  of  old,  and  the 
earth  standing  out  of  the  water  and  in  the  water  .... 
and,  ^3/ ^A6,5<:itm6  i(;(9r<:Z,  the  heavens  and  the  earth  .  .  .  . 
are  kept  in  store." 

A  cosmogony  written  from  this  point-of-view  would 
necessarily  be  couched  in  phrases  opposite,  though  not 
contradictory,  to  "  the  great  swelling  words  "  of  Sci- 
ence. "  Periods  "  would  dwindle  into  "  Days."  The 
"  Ages  of  Transition,"  which  link  the  Periods,  would 
appear  but  as  "  Evenings  "  or  ''  Mornings."  In  short, 
the  glass  being  reversed,  the  object  contemplated 
through  it  would  remain  the  same :  only  it  would  be 
presented  in  miniature. 

Such  a  picture,  moreover,  would  not  merely  not  con- 
tradict^ it  would  modify,  correct,  fill  up,  the  cosmog- 
onies of  natural  science. 

And  wonderfully  is  this  end  attained  by  the  simple 
narrative  of  the  Bible. 

Science  puts  ''  the  beginning  "  so  far  back,  that  hu- 
man thought  can  hardly  reach  it.  Eevelation  brings  it 
right  up  before  the  eyes.  Science  goes  out  in  quest  of 
God  ;  but  the  journey  is  so  long,  through  ages  upon 
ages,  that  the  wings  of  thought  flag,  and  she  fails  to 
come  near  Him.     Eevelation  begins  with  God,  and,  in 


30  THE   SIX   DAYS   OF  CREATION  ; 

Him  and  His  strength,  finds  the  ages  to  be  nothing. 
Armed  with  the  first  verse  of  Genesis,  we  meet  Science 
face  to  face,  and  announce  to  her  what  she  seeks,  but 
never  of  herself  can  find,  that  "  in  the  beginning  God 
created  the  heavens  and  the  earth." 

In  the  same  way :  when  she  begins  to  talk  to  us 
of  the  8eons,  or  ages,  tracing  their  w^eary  length  of 
arithmetical  duration,  we  remind  her  (with  St.  Paul, 
Heb.  xi.  3)  that  their  vastness  is  no  obstacle  to  Faith : 
for  "  by  Faith  we  understand  that  the  Ages  (aeons)  were 
framed  by  the  Word  of  God  ;  "  and  in  His  word,  and 
His  Life,  the  longest  periods  are  mere  Days,  such  as 
Moses  has  described  them. 

So  again  :  when  she  holds  up  an  illimitable  future, 
we  tell  her  that  this  future  has  an  appointed  end.  God 
worked  six  days,  preparing  the  way  for  man.  On  the 
seventh  day  God  rested  and  commanded  man  to  work. 
"  I  have  made  the  earth  :  do  you  replenish  and  subdue 
it.  I  have  planted  a  garden  :  do  you  dress  it  and  keep 
it."  An  eighth  day  is  coming,  in  which,  man's  work 
being  accomplished,  he  also  shall  rest. 

Thus,  Science  is  not  destroyed  :  it  is  simply  filled  up. 
What  it  cannot  reveal.  Inspiration  reveals  for  it :  what 
it  can  reveal,  Inspiration  substantially  confirms,  trans- 
lating it,  however,  from  human  language  into  Divine, 
and  so  enabling  us  to  contemplate  it,  not  from  a  hu- 
man, but  from  a  Divine,  point-of-view. 

Now,  to  go  back  from  this  digression  to  the  subject 
of  the  chapter  immediately  preceding  :  The  infidels  as- 
sume that  the  cosmogony  of  Moses  was  meant  to  be  a 
revelation.  So  far  I  agree  with  them.  They  assume 
further,  that  it  was  meant  to  be  a  revelation  from  the 
earthly,  or  matter-of-fact,  point-of-view.     There  I  differ 


OK,    THE   TELESCOPE   REVERSED.  31 

witli  them.  It  is  an  assumption  utterly  at  variance 
with  the  whole  object  of  Inspiration. 

I  will  merely  add,  that  the  Divine  point-of^view  is 
of  such  infinitely  great  importance,  in  comparison  with 
the  human,  that  if  in  the  sacred  Books  the  latter  were 
neglected  altogether,  we  should  have  no  reason  to  com- 
plain. But  it  is  a  characteristic  of  God's  works,  that 
they  are  thrifty  in  the  use  of  means,  and  are  often  made 
to  combine  objects  the  most  diverse  from  one  another. 
Thus,  to  take  one  example  out  of  many,  the  human 
mouth  is  the  organ  of  the  divine  faculty  of  speech,  and 
is  at  the  same  time  the  instrument  of  the  brute  faculty 
of  nutrition.  The  most  spiritual  act  of  man,  and  the 
most  sensuous,  are  equally  well  performed  by  one  and 
the  same  organ.  The  same  tongue,  teeth,  lips,  and  pal- 
ate, which  seem  to  be  made  expressly  for  sj^eech  and 
song,  are  as  exquisitely  adapted  to  the  uses  of  degluti- 
tion. On  the  same  principle,  I  regard  it  as  a  mark  of 
the  Divine  Hand  in  Sacred  Scripture,  that  while  in  all 
cases  the  spiritual  end  comes  first,  and  the  spiritual 
point-of-view  is  the  true  stand-point  of  interpretation, 
yet  incidentally  all  Scriptures  admit  of  profitable  inter- 
pretations from  other  points-of-view,  and  may  be  ap- 
plied without  violence  in  a  variety  of  ways. 

Thus  the  First  Chapter  of  Genesis  was  not  intended, 
in  the  first  place,  to  teach  a  scientific  cosmogony.  But 
I  find  that,  incidentally,  it  does  give  a  wonderfully  cor- 
rect outline  of  that  science,  so  far,  at  all  events,  as  the 
science  is  reliable.  The  geologist  traces  the  work  of 
creation  in  substantially  the  same  order,  and  same  pro- 
gression, as  that  which  Moses  gives.  He  differs  onl}^ 
in  the  apparent  length  or  number  of  the  intervals  as- 
signed.    But  even  in  this  matter,  the  geologist  adds  no 


32  THE   SIX   DATS   OF  CREATION; 

definite  information.  Where  Moses  sj^eaks  of  Days,  he 
speaks  of  Periods.  And  if  I  ask  what  a  Period  is,  I 
find  that  it  is  substantially  what  a  Day  is,  in  its  larger 
Scriptural  sense,  namely  any  duration  of  time  that  has 
a  beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end.  In  all  essentials, 
then,  Moses  agrees  with  the  Geologist. 

But  furthermore  I  find  that,  incidentally,  the  six 
Days  of  Moses  have  a  wonderful  correspondence  with 
the  six  Days  or  Periods  of  sacred  History  that  preced- 
ed the  Christian  era.  There  was  the  Adamic  Day,  ter- 
minating with  the  judgment  upon  the  Serpent ;  the 
Noachic  Day,  with  the  judgment  of  the  Flood ;  the 
Abrahamic  Day,  with  the  destruction  of  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah ;  the  Mosaic  Day,  with  the  ruin  of  the 
Egyptians ;  the  Prophetic  Day,  with  the  Captivity  in 
Babylon  ;  the  Evangelic  Day,  with  the  appearing  of 
the  Second  Man,  and  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem. 
Last  of  all  comes  the  seventh  Day,  the  Day  of  Chris- 
tianity, in  which  God  rests  from  His  work  "  finished  " 
on  the  Cross,  and  having  secured  man  his  inheritance, 
commands  him  to  "  dress  and  keep  it." 

Now  a  skeptic,  I  dare  say,  would  laugh  at  such 
manifoldness  of  meaning  attributed  to  one  passage. 
He  laughs  because  his  stand-point  is  different  from 
mine.  But  I  submit  that  if  I,  from  my  stand-point, 
can  see  in  this  noble  chapter,  in  the  first  place  a  high 
Theology,  in  the  second  a  broad  Philosophy,  in  the 
third  a  true  Science,  and  in  the  fourth  a  key  to  His- 
tory, while  in  all  I  discern  the  marks  of  a  Divine  In- 
spiration, I  have  decidedly  the  advantage  of  one  who 
sees  in  it  nothing  more  than  a  fine  old  legend  of  the 
hoar  antiquity  of  the  Jews. 

At  all  events,  I  can  safely  say  to  the  skeptic,  your 


OR,    THE   TELESCOPE    KEVEIiSED.  33 

"  difficulties "  are  not  in  the  doctrine  of  Inspiration : 
thej  are  merely  in  the  stand-point  from  which  you 
look.  Change  your  stand-point,  and  the  difficulties 
will  vanish.^ 

*  Rorison,  in  his  Creative  Weel^  one  of  the  Oxford  Replies  to 
Essays  and  Reviews^  shows  that  the  first  cluipter  of  Genesis  is 
2)oetical  in  style  and  structure.  For  this  he  has  been  censured  by- 
some,  as  if  the  admission  involved  a  doubt  of  the  reality  of  the 
Mosaic  narrative.  But,  as  he  well  observes,  "  Poetry  may  be  de- 
tached from  reality,  or  opposed  to  reality :  it  may  also,  and  that 
without  ceasing  to  be  itself,  or  foregoing  its  appropriate  frame- 
work, be  the  highest  and  most  vivid  exponent  of  reality.''^  In  the 
same  spirit,  the  late  Dr.  Turner,  one  of  the  safest  and  least  fanci- 
ful of  interpreters,  inclines  to  the  opinion  that  the  Temptation 
and  Fall,  Gen.  iii.,  is  clothed  in  language  -partly  allegorical ;  and 
he  proves  that  such  an  admission  does  not  compromise  in  the 
least  the  historical  truth  of  the  narrative  :  Comjyanion  to  the  Rook 
of  Genesis,  pp.  183-196.  In  such  cases,  it  is  the  part  of  sound 
critics  to  determine  how  far  the  historian  avails  himself  of  poet- 
ical or  allegorical  expressions.  That  Eve,  for  example,  was 
tempted  and  fell,  and  that  there  was  a  tempter  outside  of  her 
own  heart  and  mind,  is  clear  on  any  honest  rendering  of  Gen.  iii. 
"Whether  the  tempter  was  a  literal  serpent,  or  Satan  speaking 
through  a  serpent,  or  Satan  assuming  the  form  of  a  serpent,  or 
Satan  acting  in  that  insidious  and  subtle  way  of  which  the  ser- 
pent is  the  symbol,  has  always  been  more  or  less  of  an  open  ques- 
tion. We  unconsciously  spiritualize  the  interpretation  so  far  as 
to  believe — though  Moses  says  nothing  to  that  effect — that  Satan 
was  in  some  way  or  other  the  real  tempter. 


2* 


IV. 

INFALLIBILITY,  COMMON  SENSE,  MATTER-OF-FACT. 

I  HAVE  said  so  much  on  the  fallacy  connected  with 
Inspiration,  that  I  may  dismiss  the  term  infallible  with 
a  few  brief  remarks. 

Bishop  Colenso  uses  the  word  in  an  arbitrary  sense: 
in  a  sense  which  can  by  no  possibility  apply  to  a  great 
literature^  such  as  that  which  is  included  in  the  Bible. 

Literature  is  thought  clothed  in  language  ;  and  lan- 
guage, in  itself,  is  always  fallible.  The  most  precise 
phrases  convey  different  shades  of  meaning  to  different 
minds.  Words,  like  leaves  on  trees,  not  only  rise  and 
fall — as  Horace  beautifully  says, — but  are  constantly 
undergoing  an  imperceptible  change  of  tint.  Phrases 
in  one  tongue  can  hardly  ever  find  their  equivalents  in 
another.  In  the  most  polished  and  perfect  speech  there 
are  idioms,  intelligible  enough  to  those  who  daily  use 
them,  but  to  a  stranger  who  takes  them  literally,  posi- 
tively absurd.  A  Londoner  will  say  that  "  everyhody 
is  gone  out  of  town ; "  or  a  Parisian  will  remark  that 
"  all  the  world  is  invited  to  somebody's  reception," 
without  thinking  that  a  word-catcher  of  some  future 
age  may  find,  in  those  phrases,  proof  positive  that  Lon- 
doners and  Parisians  were  little  better  than  Cretans. 
Instances  of  the  same  kind  will  occur  to  every  reader. 


INFALLIBILITY,    COMMON    SENSE,   MATTER-OF-FACT.       35 

Now,  if  we  consider  that  the  Bible  is  popular  in  its 
style  ;  that  it  conies  to  us  from  the  most  ancient  of  all 
tongues,  and  the  most  intensely  idiomatic  ;  tliat  it  is 
the  growth  of  many  ages,  each  with  its  own  peculiar- 
ities of  thought  and  of  expression ;  that  the  language 
from  which  it  sprang  died  in  giving  it  birth  ;  that,  in 
short,  it  addresses  us  with  a  modern  and  English  look, 
but  with  a  soul  profoundly  ancient  and  Oriental,  it 
must  be  plain  that  such  a  Book  can  be  infallible  solely 
on  one  positive  and  indispensable  condition. 

Its  infallibility  applies  only  to  its  meaning.  But, 
happily,  its  meaning  is  made  clear,  in  all  essentials  of 
revelation,  not  only  by  concurrent  testimony  in  the  liv- 
ing voice  of  the  Church,  but  by  that  manifoldness  of 
expression,  that  l{7ie  upon  line^  and  j)recept  upon  pre- 
cept^ of  which  I  have  already  spoken  in  the  chapter  on 
Inspiration. 

It  is  infallible  in  the  spirit^  not  in  the  letter.  But 
to  get  at  the  spirit  of  any  book,  we  must  interpret  the 
parts  of  it  by  the  whole,  not  the  whole  by  parts  arbi- 
trarily taken. 

Not  to  dwell  on  considerations  of  this  kind,  it  will 
be  enough  to  say,  that  the  Bible  comes  to  us  accompa- 
nied by  a  body  of  living  interpretation  ;  that  interpreta- 
tion is  necessarily  a  growing  science,  being  the  fruit  of 
the  loving  labor,  not  of  one  mind  or  one  age,  but  of  all 
minds  in  the  Church  and  all  ages  ;  that  its  rules,  prin- 
ciples, and  safeguards,  being  warranted  by  the  common 
sense  of  Christendom,  and  laid  down  in  plain  terms  by 
the  sacred  Book  itself,  constitute  as  it  were  the  spirit- 
ual stand-point,  from  which  alone  things  spiritual  can 
be  properly  discerned. 

Now  Bishop  Colenso  chooses  a  stand-point  of  his 


36       INFALLIBILITY,    COMMON    SENSE,    MATTER-OF-FACT. 

own.  Brought  up  in  a  School  of  "  private  interpreta- 
tion," with  no  faith  in  the  Church,  he  is  a  victim  of 
that  popular  libliolatry,  w^hich  consists  in  a  worship  of 
the  letter  of  the  Scriptures,  without  any  corresponding 
reverence  for  the  "  authority  "  which  (Art.  xx.)  is  the  di- 
vinely appointed  "  witness  and  keeper  of  Holy  Writ." 

]^or  is  he  the  less  a  bibliolatrist,  in  that  he  now 
chooses  to  abuse  the  idol  to  which  he  has  hitherto 
fallen  down.  All  idolaters  do  the  same,  at  times.  If 
their  fetishes  fail  to  help  them,  according  to  their  own 
wishes,  the  next  step  often  is  to  tear  the  fetish  in 
pieces. 

When  the  Bible  is  used  as  a  private  oracle,  a  sort 
of  "  ephod  and  teraphim  "  (Judges  xvii.  5-13)  for  the 
worship  of  self-will,  it  is  naturally  expected  to  give  such 
answers  as  the  owner  of  it  may  desire.  But  the  inspired 
word  is  too  "lively"  to  bend  long  to  such  demands. 
The  owner,  perhaps,  has  some  fanatical  notion  about. 
Slavery  :  but  the  Bible,  in  spite  of  every  pressure,  fails 
to  humor  the  notion.  What  is  its  votary  to  do  ?  He 
concludes,  with  Bishop  Colenso,^  that  on  that  particu- 
lar point  the  Inspiration  is  wanting.  Or  his  brain  is 
vexed  with  an  enthusiasm  for  the  Total-abstinence 
cause.  But  the  Bible,  on  this  subject,  is  favorable  to 
no  extremes.  On  that  point,  then.  Inspiration  is  "  be- 
hind the  age."  Or,  it  may  be,  he  has  fallen  into  a  sci- 
entific mania.  The  Bible,  on  the  whole,  does  not  flat- 
ter human  science,  seeming  almost  to  consider  it  a  spe- 
'^ies  of  child's  play.  On  that  point,  then.  Inspiration  is 
manifestly  at  fault.  Or  he  is  enamored  of  "  facts," 
and  ''  dates,"  and  arithmetical  "  calculations."     Well : 

Introduction,  p.  50. 


INFALLIBILITY,    COMMON    SENSE,    MA'ITEK-OF-FACT.       37 

the  Bible  uses  "  facts  "  as  but  secondary  to  Truth ; 
about  '*  dates  "  it  seems  iudiliereiit,  and  liardlj  con- 
scious of  their  importance  ;  and,  as  to  arithmetic,  its 
''  rule  of  three  "  was  certainly  not  learned  in  any  of  our 
common  schools.  All  this  is  puzzling  to  a  mere  matter- 
of-fact  mind.  It  is  not  precisely  in  harmony  with  the 
mind  of  our  own  age.  It  denotes  a  point-of-view  to 
which  we  are  little  accustomed.  The  consequence  is 
that  if  we  will  insist  on  having  an  answer  in  our  own 
way,  and  on  our  own  terms,  the  oracle  that  we  consult 
disappoints  us,  and  puts  us  out ;  and,  like  Xaaman  the 
Assyrian,  we  turn  from  it  in  a  rage. 

In  such  cases,  feeling  ourselves  to  be  substantially" 
in  the  right,  we  wonder  that  the  Bible  does  not  go  with 
us  to  all  extremes.  We  forget  that  Inspiration  may  be 
given  for  the  very  j^irpose  of  moderating  our  extremes : 
teaching  us,  that ''  slavery,"  for  example,  may  be  a  good 
thing  in  its  "  time  ;  "  that  ''  total  abstinence  "  may  be 
an  excellent  discipline,  but  pernicious  if  made  a  duty 
of  obligation  ;  that  "  facts  "  and  "  figures,"  after  all,  are 
but  the  skeleton  of  Truth,  needing  flesh  and  blood  and 
life  to  make  them  endurable. 

And  such,  I  think,  is  the  essence  of  Bishop  Colen- 
so's  error.  Instead  of  consulting  the  Bible  on  its  own 
terms,  and  according  to  its  own  law,  he  makes  a  pri- 
vate oracle  of  it,  and  so  finds  it  fallible.  He  tries  it, 
not  by  Catholic  rules,  but  by  principles  and  rules  vehe- 
mently Colensic.  He  interprets  it,  not  by  the  common 
sense  of  the  Church,  but  by  Bishop  Colenso's  sense— or 
by  that  of  some  "  intelligent  Christian  native,"  a  disci- 
ple of  Bishop  Colenso. 

*  I  sav  "  substantially  ;  "  for  there  is  generally  a  right  feeling 
even  in  the  most  fanatical  notions. 


88       INFALLIBILITY,    COMMON    SENSE,   MATTEE-OF-FACT. 

The  fallacy  is  too  common  with  all  classes  of  think- 
ers. The  appeal  to  the  "  intelligent  Christian  native," 
like  the  appeal  so  often  made  to  "  some  plain,  nn- 
lettered  fanner,"  is,  in  reality,  an  appeal  to  that 
impartial  personage  whom  we  more  properly  call 
"  Self."  The  "  farmer  "  will  generally  answer  us  Yerj 
much  as  we  wish  to  have  him  answer  :  the  ''  intelligent 
native  "  is  equally  complaisant.  The  "  farmer  "  and 
"  native,"  therefore,  are  peculiarly  "  infallible." 

It  is  wonderful  how  effective  such  an  appeal  is, 
even  with  men  who  ought  to  be  able  to  see  into  the 
trick.  K  one  wishes  to  wrest  from  the  letter  of  Scrip- 
ture some  crotchet  of  his  own,  or  if  he  wishes  to  show 
that  Scripture  contradicts  itself,  there  is  no  better  plan 
than  to  submit  the  question  to  some  man  of  "  plain 
common  sense."  It  flatters  one  to  think  that  "  com- 
mon sense "  is  a  monopoly  of  his  own :  where  Popes 
have  erred,  and  Councils  have  proved  fallible,  and 
Doctors  have  disagreed,  your  "  common-sense "  man 
sees  intuitively  into  the  whole  matter.  With  this 
unction  laid  to  his  soul,  his  mind  reflects,  as  a  polished 
mirror,  whatever  is  brought  before  it.  If  you  want  ''  a 
weasel,"  *  a  weasel  forthwith  appears.  If  you  prefer 
"  a  whale,"  your  ''  common-sense  "  man  will  swallow 
the  largest  whale  you  can  bring  him,  and  will  even 
imagine  it  to  be  a  "  common-sense  "  wdiale.  Hence, 
the  infidel  and  the  bigot  appeal  vehemently  to  common 
sense. 

But  Bishop  Colenso  appeals  chiefly  to  that  variety 
of  the  common-sense  man,  which  he  somewhat  vaguely 
describes  as  the  "  intelligent  Englishman ; "  and  quotes 

*  Hamlet,  Act  III.  Scene  ii. 


LNFALLIBILITY,    COMMON    SENSE,    MATTEE-OF-FACT.       39 

(Preface,  -p.  17)  with  approbation  the  *'  one  great 
characteristic "  of  this  ch\ss,  to  wit :  that  they  are 
accustomed  '^  to  seek  for  matter-of-fact  truth  in  the  first 
■place^^  and  to  delight  in  the  '•'-practical  element^ 

Xow,  in  answering  Bishop  Colenso,  I  am  bound,  in 
some  measure,  to  follow  him  into  the  court  which  he 
has  chosen.  Like  him,  I  must  aj^peal  to  "  common 
sense,"  to  "  matter-of-fact,"  to  the  "  practical  element  " 
which  enters  so  largely  into  the  minds  of  Englishmen 
and  Aniericans.  I  only  ask  that  "  common  sense  "  be 
not  confounded  with  ignorant  prejudice ;  that  "  matter- 
of-fact  "  be  subordinated  to  Truth  ;  that  the  "  practical 
element,"  in  a  question  of  spimtual  concern,  be  not  so 
interpreted  as  to  mean  mere  secularism. 

The  Bible  is  preeminently  a  large-minded  Book.  I 
ask,  that  its  "  difficulties  "  be  dealt  with  in  a  large- 
minded  way. 

I  will  illustrate  my  meaning  by  considering,  in  the 
next  chapter,  some  of  Bishop  Colenso's  ''  difficulties." 


V. 


MOSES  AND  JOSHUA  ADDRESSING  ALL   ISRAEL- 
EIGHT   CHAPTERS  OF  DIFFICULTIES. 

I.  It  is  said  in  Deuteronomy  1.  1  and  v.  1,  and 
Joshua  viii.  34,  35,  that  "  Moses  spake  unto  all  Israel : 
he  called  all  Israel  and  said  unto  them."  So  likewise 
Joshua  "  read  all  the  words  of  the  Law  ....  there 
was  not  a  word  ....  which  Joshua  read  not  before 
all  the  congregation  ....  with  the  women,  and  the 
little  ones,  and  the  strangers  that  were  conversant 
among  them." 

"Well :  Bishop  Colenso  shows,  and  I  feel  no  call  to 
question  his  argument  or  to  quote  it,  that  it  was  physi- 
cally im2?ossible  for  07ie  man  to  read  all  those  words  so 
as  to  be  heard  by  all  those  people. 

What  then?  Does  the  writer  tell  a  lie?  The 
Bishop  acquits  him  of  that  charge.  Does  he  commit  a 
gross  blunder  ?     The  Bishop  thinks  he  does. 

]^ow,  were  the  sacred  writer  alive,  to  be  cross- 
questioned  on  the  subject,  he  might  well  begin  his 
answer  with  the  emphatic  Thou  fool !  of  another  in- 
spired penman.  For  who  is  so  stupid  as  not  to  know, 
that  phrases  of  the  kind  objected  to  are  common  to  all 
languages,  and  are  always  understood  in  a  conventional 


MOSES   AND   JOSHUA   ADDRESSING   ALL   ISRAEL.  41 

sense  ?  A  general  draws  np  his  whole  army :  does  any 
one  imagine  that  he  draws  up  the  whole  ?  I  utter  my 
solemn  opinion  in  the  face  of  the  xohole  icorld :  do  I 
expect  the  whole  world  to  stand  and  look  at  me  ?  St. 
Paul,  publicly  in  Church,  and  privately  from  house  to 
house,  declared  to  his  converts  the  whole  counsel  of 
God :  did  he  deliver  an  exhaustive  treatise  on  theology 
to  every  Christian  family  l  Our  Lord  said  to  His 
Apostles,  "Go  ye  into  all  the  world^  and  preach  the 
Gospel  to  every  creature :  "  was  there  ever  a  man  silly 
enough  to  suppose  that  He  intended  all  the  Apostles 
actually  to  preach  to  every  creature,  alive  or  dead, 
animal,  vegetable,  or  mineral,  on  the  face  of  the  whole 
earth  ?  On  the  Day  of  Pentecost,  devout  Jews  came 
up  to  Jerusalem  out  of  every  nation  under  Heaven :  do 
we  understand  from  this  that  even  a  tenth  of  the 
nations  were  literally  represented  ? 

An  "  intelligent  Englishman  "  may  be  "  matter-of- 
fact"  enough  to  boggle  at  such  phrases.  An  intelli- 
gent American  cannot  possibly  mistake  them.  For, 
every  four  years,  the  President  of  the  United  States 
stands  on  the  East  Porch  of  the  Capitol,  and  delivers 
an  "  inaugural  address  " — and  generally  a  pretty  long 
one — to  the  whole  country^  with  perhaps  some  inci- 
dental remarks  to  all  mankind.  What  seems  "  impos- 
sible," therefore,  to  Bishop  Colenso,  we  regard  as  an 
easy  and  natural  proceeding.  And  even  an  "  intelli- 
gent Englishman,"  I  dare  say,  may  meet  occasionally 
with  a  public  document  beginning  in  terms  like  these 
— "  Know  all  men  by  these  jn'esents  :  "  if  so,  he  will 
readily  enough  understand  that  the  iiteral  meaning  of 
words  is  often  a  thing  quite  different  from  the  sense 
which  they  really  bear. 


42  MOSES    AND    JOSHUA   ADDRESSING   ALL   ISRAEL. 

But  it  seems  like  trifling  to  argue  on  such  a  point. 
It  will  be  enough  to  remind  the  reader  of  Bishop 
Colenso's  book,  that  the  whole  of  Chapter  Y.  rests 
solely  for  its  support  upon  such  verbal  cavilling  as 
that  which  I  have  exposed. 

II.  The  same  is  true  of  Chapter  lY.  wherein  the 
author  shows,  by  an  arithmetical  calculation,  that  the 
Court  of  the  Tabernacle  could  7iot  possibly  have  ac- 
commodated the  Congregation  of  Israel ;  and  cojise- 
quently  that  the  command  (Levit.  viii.  1-4)  to  "  gather 
the  Congregation  together  unto  the  door  of  the  Taber- 
nacle," and  the  assertion  that  "  the  assembly  was  gath- 
ered unto  the  door,"  are  both  absurdities. 

The  first  "  absurdity"  is  common  enough  among 
matter-of-fact  Americans.  We  often  see  that  great 
Behemoth,  "  the  Public,"  invited  to  places,  into  which 
no  effort  could  squeeze  the  thousandth  j)art  of  his  huge 
person.  And  even  in  Church  matters,  things  of  the 
same  sort  occur.  A  notice  is  often  read  in  our  city 
Churches,  announcing  some  special  service  in  one  place 
or  another,  and  adding,  "  Tliis  Congregation  is  respect- 
fully requested  to  attend."  Now,  considering  that  the 
invitation  is  given  simultaneously  to  some  fifty  congre- 
gations, and  that  the  place  to  which  they  are  invited 
would  be  crowded  to  suffocation  if  any  three  of  them 
were  to  attend,  we  may  judge  how  absurd  such  a  notice 
would  be  in  the  eyes  of  Bishop  Colenso. 

Tlie  second  "  absurdity"  needs  no  such  parallels : 
for  it  is  so  worded  as  to  give  no  handle  to  word- 
catchers,  however  eager  they  may  be.  It  merely  says 
that  "  the  assembly" — however  great  or  small — "  was 
gathered  unto  the  door :  "  a  phrase  which  aptly  enough 
describes  the  appearance  of  a  great  gathering — whether 


MOSES    AND   JOSHUA    ADDRESSING    ALL    ISRAEL.  43 

a  "  mass  meeting  "  in  this  country  or  a  religious  jubi- 
lee in  the  East — when  the  place  at  which  they  assemble 
is  too  strait  for  them.  The  Caaba,  which  to  this  day 
is  the  shrine  of  the  whole  Moslem  world,  is  an  edilice 
of  extremely  scant  dimensions.  Yet  the  immense 
crowds  which  resort  there  annually  manage  in  some 
way  to  "  gather  unto  the  door." 

III.  Again,  in  Chapter  YI :  "  The  extent  of  the 
Camp,  compared  with  the  Priest's  duties,  and  the  daily 
necessities  of  the  people,"  is  in  Bishop  Colenso's  eyes 
another  eo^reo:ious  blunder  :  because  the  Priest  is  com- 
manded  (Levit.  iv.  11,  12)  to  "carry  "  all  refuse  "with- 
out the  camp  "  and  to  burn  it.* 

The  Bishop  evidently  supposes  that,  if  a  man  should 
take  a  contract  to  clean  the  streets  of  Xew  York,  he  is 
bound  thereby  to  take  broom  and  shovel  in  hand,  and 
do  the  whole  work  himself.  Possibly,  if  the  contract 
were  made  in  English,  a  matter-of-fact  Jury,  with  a 
Colenso  to  prosecute  and  a  Shylock  to  expound  the 
law,  might  so  interpret  his  bond.  But  the  Hebrew 
Priest  was  secured  against  such  a  mishap  by  the  fact, 
strangely  overlooked  by  Bishop  Colenso,  that  the  com- 
mand to  carry  forth  and  hum  is  expressed  in  the 
causative  mood  :  literally,  he  shall  "  cause  to  go  forth  " 
— a  distinction  that  would  have  saved  him  in  the  eyes 
of  Shylock,  who  knew  something  of  Hebrew,  if  not  in 
those  of  Bishop  Colenso. 

lY.  The  difficulty  in  Chapter  XXI.  is  somewhat 
greater,  though  evidently  of  the  same  character.  Tlie 
Priests  were  obliged  (2  Chron.  xxx.  16,  xxxv.  11)  to 

*  I  forbear  quoting,  or  answering,  the  vile  jokes  of  the  Bishop 
about  the  sanatory  regulation  in  Deut.  xxiii.  14.  The  context, 
verse  9,  shows  that  it  was  meant  for  the  military  camp. 


44:  MOSES   AND   JOSHUA   ADDRESSING   ALL   ISRAEL. 

sprinMe  the  hlood  of  the  lambs  slain  for  the  Passover ; 
also  (Levit.  xvii.  2-6)  to  sj)Tinhle  the  hlood  of  every  ox, 
or  lamb,  or  goat,  slain  by  any  of  the  people  for  sacri- 
fice :  which  slaying,  moreover,  was  to  be  done  "  at  the 
door  of  the  Tabernacle."  In  the  same  way,  in  Chapter 
XX,  the  numerous  minute  dicties  of  the  Priests  (Levit. 
i.-vi.,  xii.-xv.,  xxviii.,  xxix.)  and  the  provision  made 
for  their  support  (Num.  xviii.  9-11,  14-18,  &c.)  were 
enormiously  disproportioned  to  the  numher  of  the 
Priests  ;  that  is,  supposing  the  number  of  Priests  and 
People  to  have  been  precisely  that  which  appears  on 
the  face  of  the  narrative. 

This  last  supposition  is  open  to  discussion  :  for  the 
present,  however,  I  assume  it  to  be  true. 

ISTow,  as  to  the  nicer  points  involved  in  this  con- 
troversy,"^ they  have  been  discussed  by  Kurtz  and  other 
learned  commentators,  times  without  number ;  and  it 
has  been  abundantly  shown  that  on  a  liberal  construc- 
tion the  difficulties  may  be  explained.  As  my  object 
is  merely  to  expose  the  general  fallacy  which  underlies 
the  cavils  of  Bishoj)  Colenso,  I  pass  by  these  tninuticB ', 
and  content  myself  with  calling  attention  to  a  few 
obvious  considerations. 

The  Law,  as  given  by  the  hand  of  Moses,  was 
necessarily  prospective :  being  intended,  not  for  the 
forty  years  of  wilderness-life  merely,  but  for  a  long 
period  beyond,  to  the  coming  of  the  Messiah.  This 
being  the  case,  it  necessarily  contained  enactments 
which  could  go  into  force  only  as  circumstances  admit- 
ted.    The  maxim,  necessitas  non  hahet  legem^  is  so  self- 

*  For  example,  Whether  the  Priesthood,  which  pertained  to  all 
the  *'  nation  of  Priests,"  was  suddenly  confined  in  all  particulars  to 
Aaron  and  his  sons,  or  was  gradually  transferred. 


MOSES    A^B   JOSHUA   ADDRESSING    ALL    ISRAEL.  45 

evident  to  man,  that  no  law  however  i^recise  can  be 
supposed  to  abrogate  it,  and  no  man  of  common  sense 
can  doubt  the  lawfulness  of  its  application,  when  the 
necessity  really  exists. 

Hence,  with  regard  to  the  duties  of  the  Priests.  If 
th^se  duties  were,  in  the  wilderness,  disproportioned  to 
their  strength,  the  Priests  had  sense  enough,  and  Moses 
had  sense  enough,  to  perform  them  so  far  as  they  were 
able,  leaving  the  rest  to  be  performed  as  their  ability 
increased.  So,  with  regard  to  the  ■provision  of  food 
made  for  them  in  the  Law :  doubtless,  they  ate  as 
much  as  they  wanted  ;  and  if  anything  remained  over, 
Moses  was  present,  a  living  interpreter  of  the  Law,  who 
could  readily  suggest  to  them  what  to  do  with  the  rest. 
And  that  there  actually  was  some  such  power  of  adap- 
tation to  circumstances,  is  shown  by  the  fact  (Josh.  v. 
6,  Y)  that  for  forty  years  the  essential  rite  of  circum- 
cision was  universally  neglected.  But  if  Moses  could 
permit  so  glaring  an  irregularity  as  that,  we  may  be 
sure  that  he  had  some  way  of  suspending,  or  adapting, 
other  enactments  of  the  Law. 

A  Bishop,  in  confirming,  is  strictly  required  by 
rvhric^  to  lay  his  hands  upon  the  head  of  every  one  sev- 
erally^ saying^  &c.  "What  can  be  more  explicit  ?  Yet 
what  Bishop,  if  he  has  a  large  number  to  be  confirmed, 
ever  troubles  himself  with  the  letter  of  such  a  rubric  ? 
The  Apostles,  in  like  manner,  were  commanded  to 
preach  to  every  creature,  haptizing  and  teaching  all. 
Yet  St.  Paul,  the  most  active  of  the  Apostles  and  the 
least  likely  to  decline  any  portion  of  his  duties,  thanked 
God  that  he  had  baptized  none  of  his  Corinthian  con- 
verts. It  is  well  for  him  that  he  has  not  fallen  into 
the  hands  of  Bishop  Colenso.     But  the  Bishop   may 


46  MOSES    AND   JOSHUA   ADDRESSING   ALL   ISRAEL. 

catch  him  jet,  when  he  comes — as  he  promises — to  the 
examination  of  the  New  Testament. 

But  the  Law,  it  may  be  urged — and  Bishop  Colenso 
fails  not  to  urge  it — required  obedience  in  every  point. 
So  it  did.  And  so  does  all  law :  the  moral  law  re- 
quires it,  as  much  as  the  ceremonial ;  the  Christian  law, 
as  much  as  the  Judaic.  "  Whosoever  shall  keep  the 
whole  law  and  yet  offend  in  one  point,  he  is  guilty  of 
all  ?  "  But  what  is  the  inference  from  this  ?  Simply, 
that  law — as  such — is  far  beyond  the  ability  of  man  to 
meet.  It  is  a  measure  of  his  shortcomings,  not  of  his 
performances.  It  convicts  him  of  sin :  it  does  not 
assure  him  of  righteousness.  It  kills,  but  does  not 
quicken.  ]^ow,  if  God,  in  giving  a  ceremonial  law  to 
the  Jews,  introduced  into  it  that  feature  which  per- 
vades all  law  ;  if  He  gave  ordinances  of  perfection,  far 
beyond  the  practical  reach  of  any  man  or  class  of  men : 
it  merely  proves  that  He  was  consistent  with  Himself ; 
that  He  did  not  intend  to  give  flesh  the  glory  of  fulfil- 
ling— even  in  the  smallest  matters — the  fulness  of  His 
requirements. 

The  more  clearly  it  is  proved,  therefore,  that  the 
Law,  as  given  by  Moses,  presented  a  standard  impos- 
sible of  attainment,  the  more  fully  is  Moses  shown  to 
be  in  harmony  with  St.  Paul. 

But  this  is  beyond  the  depth  of  such  critics  as 
Bishop  Colenso.  He  is  content  to  stand  on  plain 
"  matter-of-fact :  "  with  broad  views  of  the  Divine  pur- 
pose he  will  not  trouble  himself.  Well,  then :  as  a 
mere  matter-of-fact,  the  same  writer  who  gives  us  the 
strict  minuticB  of  the  Law  informs  us  continually,  in  the 
same  narrative,  that  the  Law  was  very  indifferently 
observed.     In  great  matters  and  small,  the  Jews  were 


MOSES    AND   JOSHUA   ADDRESSING   ALL    ISRAEL.  47 

perpetually  transgressing.  Even  Moses  (Exod.  iv. 
2-i-26)  was  astonishingly  negligent,  in  some  points.  If 
this  be  so,  it  is  plain  that  the  writer  of  the  Pentateuch 
never  intended  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  law  given  by 
him  was  literally  enforced  in  the  wilderness ;  conse- 
quently, all  argument  based  upon  the  difficulties  of  its 
observance  either  goes  for  nothing,  or  else  proves  (what 
we  knew  before)  that  it  was  imperfectly  carried  out. 

Y.  In  Chapter  XXII,  the  Bishop  finds  out  by 
calculation  a  chronological  difficulty. 

The  death  of  Aaron  being  mentioned  in  Num.  xx. 
29,  the  narrative  goes  on  with  a  variety  of  other  events 
summarily  related,  coupled  (as  is  common  in  Bible  his- 
tory) by  the  copulative  "  and." 

"  They  mourned  for  Aaron  thirty  days." 

"  And  when  king  Arad  the  Canaanite,  which  dwelt 
in  the  south,  heard  tell  that  Israel  came  by  the  way 
of  the  spies,  then  he  fought  against  Israel." 

The  Bishop  conveniently  puts  ^'after  this^^  for 
"  and,"  thereby  assuming  that  the  events  connected 
with  kino:  Arad  were  strictly  after  the  mourninc:  for 
Aaron,  whereas  they  may  have  been  simultaneous  with 
it,  or  partly  before  and  partly  after — nothing  being 
more  common  in  history  than  this  gathering  up,  as  it 
were,  of  facts  which  overlap  one  another  in  point  of 
time. 

But  the  Bishop,  having  assumed  this  strictly  con- 
secutive character  of  the  events  named,  arbitrarily 
allows  a  7nonth  for  their  transaction. 

So  with  the  events  that  follow  :  he  makes  them  all 
strictly  consecutive.  For  example,  when  "  Moses  sent 
to  spy  out  Jazer,  and  they  took  the  villages  thereof,  and 
drove  out  the  Amorites  that  were  there  "  (Xum.  xxi. 


48  MOSES   AND   JOSHUA  ADDKESSING   ALL   ISRAEL. 

32),  the  natural  supposition  would  be,  that  said  event 
was  what  we  would  call  in  modern  parlance  a  detached 
expedition^  which  might  be  doing  its  work  w^hile  the 
main  body  of  the  peoj^le  were  engaged  in  other  affairs. 
But  the  Bishop  assumes  it  to  be  a  work  of  the  whole 
people,  and  allows  for  it  2i  fortnight  more. 

And  so  he  goes  on,  assuming  in  each  case  that  the 
events  related  followed  each  other  like  mules  along  a 
mountain  path,  the  head  of  the  one  tied  fast  to  the  tail 
of  the  other,  and  allowing  for  each  a  fortnight,  month, 
or  whatever  else  he  chooses  ;  and  having  thus  dictated 
his  sum  in  arithmetic,  invites  us  to  "  add  up." 

I  beg  to  be  excused.  Events  in  history  are  not  tied 
to  each  other's  tails,  in  such  a  fashion  as  that.  The 
word  "  and  "  in  historical  writers  does  not  mean  ''  after 
this."  A  detached  movement  in  an  arru}^  is  not  con- 
secutive to  the  main  movement ;  it  is  more  often  simul- 
taneous with  it. 

And  especially  in  early  writers :  any  one  who  has 
studied  the  style  of  the  old  historians,  or  even  of  histo- 
rians so  modern  comparatively  as  the  four  Evangelists, 
knows  that  the  copulative  "  and  "  is  in  itself  no  guide 
to  the  order  of  the  things  narrated.  Such  writers,  it  is 
well  known,  are  negligent  of  chronology,  unless  there 
happens  to  be  need  of  exactness  in  that  respect.  And 
when  there  is  need,  and  they  wish  to  be  exact,  they 
generally  signify  it  by  such  definite  phrases  as  "  then," 
"  after  this,"  "  about  this  time,"  or  the  like.  The 
Bishop's  assumptions,  therefore,  are  purely  gratuitous. 
To  add  up  "  the  sum  "  which  he  bases  upon  them  may 
be  good  exercise  for  an  infant-school,  but  to  one  who 
knows  his  right  hand  from  his  left,  it  would  be  idle  in 
the  extreme. 


MOSES    AND   JOSHUA   ADDRESSING   ALL   ISRAEL.  49 

But  the  Bishop  thinks  otherwise.  Ilis  six  or  seven 
assumjytlons  being  duly  added  to  about  the  same  num- 
ber of  allowances^  and  no  assumptions  or  allowances 
being  credited  to  the  other  side — for  the  Bishop's  arith- 
metic admits  no  rule  of  subtraction — he  finds  the  sum- 
total  to  be  a  greater  amount  of  work  done  than  could 
possibly  have  been  done  in  the  "  six  months  "  which 
Moses  has  allotted  to  it. 

YI.  One  or  two  more  examples  will  snflScc  for  tlie 
present  chapter.  In  Chapter  VIII.  of  the  Bishop's 
work,  "  the  Israelites  dwelling  in  teiits^''  and  in  Chap- 
ter IX,  ''  the  Israelites  arined^''  are  to  be  regarded  as 
manifest  slips,  on  the  part  of  Moses,  because,  by 
Colenso's  arithmetic,  it  appears  impossible  to  have 
gotten  tents  or  arms  for  all  the  people.  Esjiecially  was 
this  impossible,  because  (the  Bishop  decrees)  their  tents 
7)iust  have  been  of  "  skins,"  and  their  arms  must  have 
been — the  Bishop  does  not  say  what.  Besides,  how 
could  they  get  beasts  enough  to  carry  all  this  baggage  ? 

Perhaps  the  beasts  they  had,  carried  their  own 
skins  for  awhile :  a  thrifty  arrangement,  which  would 
go  far  toward  meeting  three  of  the  Bishop's  difficul- 
ties. It  would  provide  materials  for  tents,  when  the 
beasts  should  be  slain ;  it  would  be  an  inducement  to 
slay  most  of  the  beasts  at  as  early  a  date  as  possible, 
thus  meeting  incidentally  another  difficulty  of  the 
Bishop,  Chapter  XII — namely,  that  of  finding  food  in 
the  wilderness  for  so  many  cattle ;  it  would  feed  the 
people  in  the  interval  before  the  manna  was  sent. 
And  as  to  arms^  a  hardy  people,  engaged  in  making 
bricks,  are  never  without  weapons  of  some  sort  or 
other. 

But,  apart  from  considerations  of  this  kind,  whei'e 
3 


50  MOSES   A^D   JOSHUA   ADDRESSING   ALL   ISRAEL. 

does  Moses  say  tliat  all  the  Israelites  had  the  comfort 
of  tents  ?  From  what  does  the  Bishop  infer  that  all 
the  tents  were  of  "  skins."  Moses  says  (Exod.  xvi.  16), 
"  Take  ye  every  man  for  them  which  are  in  his  tents." 
But  this  no  more  implies  that  every  man  had  tents, 
and  especially  skin  tents,  than  the  phrase,  "  Take  ye 
every  man  for  them  which  are  in  his  house,"  would 
imply  that  every  man  had  a  house,  and  that  a  brick 
house.  The  Israelites,  in  all  probability,  were  very 
indifferently  provided  with  domestic  comforts.  As  a 
people  just  escaped  from  bondage  and  hard  labor,  they 
would  need  but  little  in  that  way.  And  that  they  had 
but  little,  we  may  infer  from  their  oft-repeated  wish  to 
go  back  into  Egypt. 

YII.  The  same  general  remark  applies  to  the  diffi- 
culty of  Chapter  XII,  namely,  that  of  finding  food  for 
"  the  sheep  and  cattle  in  the  wilderness."  That  the 
Israelites  were  hard  put  to  it,  at  times,  the  narrative 
plainly  enough  declares.  There  is  no  necessity,  how- 
ever, for  making  so  hard  a  case  of  it  as  Bishop  Colenso 
does.  The  wilderness,  at  that  time,  was  doubtless  a 
desert  in  many  parts :  but  not  necessarily  so  much  of 
a  desert  as  it  is  at  the  present  day.  As  compared  with 
Egypt  on  the  one  side,  and  Canaan  on  the  other,  it 
may  have  been  quite  sterile.  But,  as  Egypt  now  is  a 
desert,  compared  with  Egypt  then  ;  or  as  Canaan  now 
is  a  desert,  compared  with  Canaan  then ;  so  also  it  may 
be  with  the  wilderness  between.  Though  a  "  desert  " 
in  ancient  times,  it  may  have  been  vastly  less  of  a  des- 
ert than  it  is  just  now.  The  difficulty,  therefore, 
though  it  was  undoubtedly  great  enough  to  be  seri- 
ously felt,  was  by  no  means  insuperable. 

But,  in  all  these  cases,  covering  some  eight  chapters 


MOSES   AND   JOSHUA   ADDKESSrNG    ALL   ISRAEL.  51 

of  Bisliop  Colenso's  book,  the  difficulty — save  with  re- 
gard to  the  precise  member  of  the  people,  which  I  re- 
serve for  special  consideration — is  occasioned  almost 
solely  by  a  "  matter-of-fact "  determination,  to  treat  the 
Pentateuch  as  one  would  treat  a  sum  in  arithmetic. 
Hence  no  allowance  is  to  be  made  for  idioms,  conven- 
tional phrases,  and  the  like ;  none,  for  such  omissions 
of  mere  details  as  are  common  to  all  writers.  The  bald 
and  naked  letter,  as  it  is  in  English,  interpreted  by 
English  matter-of-fact  sense  as  exhibited  in  Bishop  Co- 
lenso,  is  to  be  pressed  to  the  utmost  against  the  narra- 
tive of  Moses  ;  and  no  hypothesis,  no  supplying  of 
probable  details,  no  allowance  for  the  peculiarities  of 
ancient  times,  no  faith  in  that  Omnipotence  which  led 
the  people,  is  to  be  admitted  in  its  favor. 

Hypothesis,  however,  is  to  be  excluded,  only  when 
it  may  serve  to  clear  up  the  meaning  of  Moses :  should 
it  help  to  confound  his  meaning,  the  Bishop  not  only 
freely  admits  it,  but  gives  it  a  quasi-infallibility  by  a 
liberal  use  of  the  word  must.  Where  other  writers 
would  say,  It  may  have  been  so  and  so.  Bishop  Colenso 
prefers  to  say,  It  must  have  been. 

And  it  is  also  to  be  noted,  that  no  reference  is  to  be 
made  to  the  hundreds  of  minute  touches,  showing  a 
personal  familiarity  with  Egyptian  and  desert  life, 
which  to  minds  of  the  highest  order  have  demonstrated 
the  historical  character  of  the  Pentateuch.  Bishop  Co- 
lenso has  no  notion  of  "  a  balance  "  of  probabilities. 
If  he  can  prove  ten  points  against  Moses,  the  hundred 
points  in  his  favor  need  not  be  alluded  to.  In  short, 
as  I  have  said  before,  the  Bishop's  arithmetic  is  all  ad- 
dition, and  no  subtraction  :  he  keeps  a  ledger,  in  which 
all  the  columns  are  debit,  and  none  credit 


AN  APOLOGY  TO   GOOD   CHRISTIANS  FOR  "THINGS 
NEW    AND    OLD." 

But  here  I  foresee  a  possible  objection,  coming  from 
a  quarter  for  which  I  have  great  respect. 

Some  good  Christian  may  say  :  "  Are  you  not  con- 
ceding too  mucJi  to  these  conventional,  or  idiomatic 
phrases  ?  If  you  grant  that  the  words  '  all '  and  '  every ' 
and  '  every  .  .  .  under  heaven,'  and  the  like,  express  ideas 
so  much  more  limited  than  one  at  first  sight  w^ould 
think  possible,  may  you  not  be  forced  into  dangerous 
interpretations  of  other  passages  than  those  which  you 
have  so  far  quoted  ?  " 

I  answer,  There  is  a  danger.  And  I  can  see  the  ap- 
plication to  some  passages — for  example,  the  Mosaic 
account  of  the  Deluge — which,  for  one,  I  like  to  receive 
in  the  sense  that  has  been  commonly  given  to  them. 

Still,  Interpretation  is  a  science  that  must  grow 
with  other  sciences.  While  its  princij)les  are  always 
the  same,  the  applications  of  those  principles  are  con- 
tinually enlarging  with  the  lapse  of  time  ;  because  the 
horizon  of  human  thonght  is  continually  enlarging.  In 
the  days  of  the  Apostles,  the  icorld — the  oikouinene — the 
habitat  of  man — was  virtually  little  more  than  the  Ro- 
man Empire.    In  the  days  of  Moses,  it  was  a  space  still 


AN   APOLOGY   TO   GOOD   CIIKISTIANS.  53 

more  contracted.  At  the  present  day  it  embraces  both 
sides  of  the  globe.  From  the  Divine  point-of-view,  this 
is  a  fact  of  little  importance.  Gud  contemplates  the 
part  in  the  whole,  and  the  whole  in  any  part.  He  sees 
in  the  mustard-seed  the  full  mustard-tree.  And  as  with 
God,  so  with  the  sacred  language  inspired  by  God.  Its 
words  are  "  spirit  and  life,"  in  more  senses  than  one. 
Tliey  are  germinating  words,  words  that  bear  fruit  for 
one  age  with  seeds  of  other  fruits  for  ages  to  come 
after.  The  interpretation  that  may  answer  for  to-day, 
because  it  is  large  enough  to  fill  the  mind  of  to-day, 
may  expand  to-morrow,  in  order  to  fill  up  the  mind  of 
to-morrow.  Thus  Interpretation  may  grow,  though  it 
may  not  change.  Its  principles  being  fixed,  in  the  laws 
of  human  speech,  and  its  form  being  determined,  in  the 
Faith  once  delivered  to  the  Saints,  and  its  stand-point 
established,  in  the  Church,  the  Pillar  and  Ground  of 
Truth,  it  may  go  on  for  the  future,  as  it  has  gone  on  in 
the  past,  re-adjusting  itself  from  time  to  time,  while 
remaining  in  all  essentials  continually  the  same. 

Thus,  it  has  adjusted  itself  already  to  the  Coperni- 
can  system  of  Astronomy :  if  other  systems  of  science 
should  prove  equally  true,  it  may  with  equal  safety  to 
the  Scriptures  adjust  itself  to  them. 

Hence,  while  I  acknowledge  some  danger  in  any 
explanations  that  may  seem  to  threaten  a  received  view 
of  difficult  passages  in  Scripture,  yet  I  am  confident 
that  the  danger  is  less  than  is  imagined.  And  to  those, 
who  abide  by  tlie  Church,  and  plant  their  feet  on  that 
Rock  on  which  the  Church  is  built,  there  is  no  danf]:er 
whatsoever.  If  others  are  in  danger,  it  is  because  they 
despise  the  safeguards  of  Faith  which  God  in  His  good- 
ness hath  provided. 


54  AN  APOLOGY   TO   GOOD   CHRISTIANS. 

At  all  events,  the  allowance  we  have  to  make  for 
the  force  of  idioms  involves  no  concession  of  the  Di- 
vine word  itself.  It  involves  only  a  closer  study  of  the 
laws  of  human  speech.  Those  laws,  if  examined,  may 
enable  us,  in  the  work  of  harmonizing  religion  and  sci- 
ence, to  go  further  than  at  first  we  might  think  it  pos- 
sible to  go.     If  so,  let  us  follow  those  laws. 

I  may  add  that  a  real  belief  in  Inspiration,  as  in  the 
full  s€nse  Divine,  almost  necessarily  hnjplies  a  progres- 
sive interpretation.  The  Holy  Ghost  sjDeaks  in  and 
through  an  age,  using  the  idioms  of  that  age,  but  not 
fo7'  that  age  alone  through  which  He  speaks.  Hence, 
while  Interpretation  as  a  whole  is  fixed,  being  nothing 
more  or  less  than  the  Creed  or  Rule  of  Faith,  the  in- 
terpretation of  j)articular  parts  of  Scripture  may  won- 
derfully develop.  Thus,  a  thousand  years  ago,  no  one 
thought  of  the  heavenly  lights  as  other  than  fiery  span- 
gles ;  and  therefore  no  one  cared  whether  they  were 
"  set  in  the  firmament "  the  first  day  or  the  fourth. 
Consequently,  no  one  troubled  himself  much  about  the 
precise  words  of  Moses  on  the  subject.  !Now  the  case 
is  difi'erent.  We  have  learned  to  study  the  stars  more 
closely  :  consequently,  we  study  more  closely  what  the 
Divine  word  has  to  say  about  them.  The  result  is  that 
we  find  out  something  previously  overlooked.  Where 
Moses  speaks  of  "  lights,"  we  notice  that  the  word  (in 
Hebrew)  means  more  accurately  "  light-holders  " — a 
term  that  harmonizes  more  fitly  with  the  latest  results 
of  Science. 

"Thus  Science  acts  upon  Interpretation,  as  the  sun- 
light acts  upon  a  writing  in  invisible  ink.  It  does  not 
create  a  new  meaning  :  it  merely  brings  out  to  view  a 
hitherto  hidden  meaning. 


AN   APOLOGY   TO   GOOD   CURISTIAN8.  55 

"  Tliere  is  nothing  liid  which  shall  not  be  manifest- 
ed ;  neither  was  anything  kept  secret,  but  that  it 
should  come  abroad."  Science  is  fuliilling  this  prophe- 
cy, in  reference  to  the  secrets  of  Nature.  Every  year,  a 
prejudice  is  dispelled :  every  year  something  hidden  for 
ages  comes  out  into  the  light.  Why  may  we  not  expect 
the  same,  in  reference  to  things  which  have  been  "  hid  " 
in  the  letter  of  the  Scriptures  ?  Why  can  we  not  allow 
that  much  may  have  been  kept  secret,  by  being  couched 
in  idiomatic  language,  with  the  intention  that  ulti- 
mately it  should  come  abroad  ?  Discoveries  result, 
either  from  shedding  some  new  light  upon  a  well- 
known  subject,  or  else  from  contemplating  the  subject 
from  a  new  point-of-view.  Now  Science  undoubtedly 
sheds  new  lights.  It  unquestionably  puts  us  in  new 
points-of-view.  May  not  this  lead  to  new  interpreta- 
tions of  the  Bible,  even  as  it  has  led  to  new  interpreta- 
tions of  Nature  ?  It  must,  if  interpreters  are  alive  to 
the  demands  of  their  sacred  calling.  For  "  a  scribe  in- 
structed unto  the  kingdom  of  Heaven  is  like  a  house- 
holder that  bringeth  forth  out  of  his  treasure  things 
new  and  old." 

In  fact,  there  is  an  essential  difference  between  our 
Faith,  which  rests  upon  the  sense  of  Scripture  as  a 
whole,  and  what  we  properly  call  our  "  views  "  of  par- 
ticular passages  of  Scripture. 

The  latter  may  be  enlarged,  or  modified,  or  rendered 
more  clear,  or  may  even  in  some  cases  be  materially 
changed,  without  in  the  slightest  degree  affecting  the 
former. 

And  as  with  our  views  of  certain  texts,  so  also  with 
our  views  of  the  nature  of  Inspiration.  Most  persons 
start  with  the  matter-of-fact  idea,  that  the  soul  of  the 


56  AN   APOLOGY  TO   GOOD   CHEISTIANS. 

inspired  person  is,  like  a  soul  possessed,  merely  a  pas- 
sive instrument  in  the  Hand  of  the  Inspirer.  The  early 
Church  exploded  that  idea.  The  man  inspired  remains 
every  whit  a  man.  He  is,  in  fact,  a  man  Intensified. 
And  inspired  writings,  too,  are  preeminently  human 
writings.  There  is  in  the  Bible  more  flesh  and  blood, 
if  I  may  so  speak,  than  in  any  other  extant  literature. 

It  is  proper,  therefore,  to  be  cautious,  not  only  with 
regard  to  oiew  views  of  Scripture  texts,  but  also  with 
regard  to  old  views.  For  if  a  new  view  to-day  is  sug- 
gested in  part  by  the  science  of  to-day,  the  old  view  of 
yesterday  may  equally  have  been  suggested  by  the  sci- 
ence of  yesterday.  The  only  safe  rule  is  to  use  the  eyes 
that  God  hath  given  us,  in  the  light  that  He  vouch- 
safes, and  from  that  stand-point  of  the  Church  which 
He  hath  provided  for  us. 

I  make  these  remarks,  not  for  Bishop  Colenso,  but 
with  a  view  to  critics  of  a  much  nobler  type.  Many 
of  these  feel  that  Interpretation  is  cramped,  and  their 
own  hands  tied,  and  an  open  field  left  to  the  infidel  as- 
sailant, by  the  timorousness  of  those  who  mistake  a 
popular  sense  of  Scripture  for  the  ScrijDture  itseK;  and 
who  therefore  start  at  everything  that  disturbs  popu- 
lar ideas.  A  true  faith  in  the  Bible  admits  no  such 
alarms. 


vn. 

JACOB'S   FAMILY  LIST. 

Bishop  Colenso  devotes  his  second  and  third  chap- 
ters to  supposed  errors  in  the  List  of  the  Seventy  Souls 
who  went  with  Jacob  into  Egypt. 

There  are  four  names  on  the  List  (Gen.  xlvi.  12,  17) 
which  were  evidently  inserted  after  Jacob's  arrival  in 
Egypt :  evidently  inserted,  because  it  is  obvious*  tliat 
the  persons  named,  being  grand-children  of  Judah  and 
Asher,  could  not  have  been  in  existence  before  that 
event :  Colenso^  p.  61. 

The  matter  has  puzzled  the  interpreters,  and  various 
devices  for  disentangling  the  knot  have  been  learnedly 
suggested.  Bishop  Colenso  manages  to  make  sport  of 
these  devices,  and  by  some  twist  of  his  own  seems  to 
get  the  whole  affair  into  a  worse  tangle  than  ever. 

The/ac'^,  fairly  stated  from  Scripture,  is  simj^ly  this : 

Jacob's  Family  List,  whether  written  in  any  way 
or  merely  committed  to  memory,  contained  before  he 
went  into  Egypt  precisely  seventy  souls  :  though  four 
of  these,  namely  his  two  wivesf  and  two  of  the  sons 
of  Judah,:!:  were  souls  of  the  departed.     Tlius,  arithme- 

*  I  concede  this  point :  though  good  critics  have  disputed  it. 
t  Gen.  xlviii.  7;  xHx.  31.  \  Gen.  xxxviii.  7,  10. 

3* 


58  Jacob's  family  list. 

tically,  and  in  a  matter-of-fact  way,  Jacob  had  sixty-si^ 
in  his  company  when  he  first  settled  in  Egypt :  but  re- 
ligiously, or  as  some  might  say  poetically, — in  the 
spirit  of  the  little  maid  of  Wordsworth's  ballad,  who 
insisted  so  strenuously,  "  We  are  seven," — he  might  still 
count  them  seventy. 

To  this  fact  may  be  added  the  i6\\.o\^^mg  j^^^obabilities. 

When  Jacob  arrived  in  Egypt,  he  probably  gave  to 
his  List  the  title  or  heading  which  it  still  bears — namely, 
the  JSFaines  of  the  Children  of  Israel  which  came  with 
him  into  Egypt :  Exod.  i.  1:  Gen.  xlvi.  8-28.  And 
it  is  likely  enough  that  he  did  this,  without  troubling 
himself  to  erase,  either  from  his  tablets  or  his  memory, 
the  names  of  the  dear  departed  souls  whom  the  kind- 
hearted  and  faithful  Patriarch  still  regarded  as  "of  his 
company." 

At  a  later  date,  however,  he  may  have  revised  his 
List.  Affectionate  heads  of  families  are  apt  to  do  such 
things.  Their  Family  List  is  the  solace  of  their  old 
age  :  and  they  turn  it  over  and  over,  as  fondly  as  a 
miser  counts  over  his  hoarded  money.  The  Patriarch, 
then,  turning  his  List  over  in  this  way,  and  counting  his 
seventy  souls  which  the  Lord  had  given  him,  and  reluc- 
tant to  erase  his  four  departed  souls,  availed  himself  of 
the  first  opportunity  to  substitute  for  them  four  new 
souls — among  his  great-grandchildren — whom  the  Lord 
in  His  goodness  had  granted  him  in  their  ])lace/^ 
Thus  the  names  of  the  grandchildren  of  Judah  and 
Asher  may  easily  have  come  in.  I\"o  other  names  were 
added,  because  no  others  were  needed. 

*  Gen.  XXX.  9,  &c.,  shows  that  the  idea  oi  siibstitution  could  go 
Iniich  farther  then,  than  would  he  considered  proper  now. 


Jacob's  family  list.  59 

The  mystic  force  of  the  number  seventy — a  well- 
known  sacred  number — may  have  stimulated  his  desire 
to  keep  his  List  up  to  that  iigure,  after  it  had  once 
reached  it.  If  he  had  been  a  matter-of-fact  man,  the 
desire  of  keeping  to  a  round  number  might  also  have 
had  something  to  do  with  it.  For  arithmetic,  among 
the  Ancients,  was  very  loosely  taught.  I^o  Colensos 
then  had  put  forth  text-books  on  the  subject.  More- 
over, there  was  not  nmch  writing  done  in  those  primi- 
tive times.  Men  carried  their  note-books  in  their  brains, 
rather  than  in  their  pockets.  It  will  be  readily  seen, 
then,  that  a  certain  preference  for  romid  numbers  was 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world. 

However  all  this  may  be,  Moses  took  the  Family 
List  of  Jacob,  just  as  Jacob  had  left  it ;  and  inserted  it 
— with  all  its  sins  against  arithmetic  on  its  head — in  his 
books  of  Genesis  and  Exodus. 

But,  as  an  inspired  man,  had  he  a  right  to  overlook 
or  to  sanction  these  sins  against  modern  arithmetic  ? 

I  answer,  Yes  :  the  Holy  Ghost  did  not  inspire  him 
to  be  a  pedant,  or  arithmetician.  He  was  raised  up, 
and  inspired,  for  a  holier  and  better  work.  As  a  his- 
torian of  Truth,  and  not  a  detailer  of  mere  facts, — as  a 
Prophet  of  the  old  world,  not  a  Gradgi'ind  of  the  nine- 
teenth century, — ^he  concerned  himself  chiefly  with 
weightier  matters  of  the  law. 

If  a  slight  inaccuracy  in  figures — an  inaccuracy, 
that  is,  from  one  point-of-view — should  turn  out  to  be 
the  means  of  suggesting  spiritual  reflections,  it  would 
be  just  the  kind  of  inaccuracy  that  large-minded  men 
of  all  ages  delight  in  :  an  inaccuracy,  I  may  reverently 
add,  not  alien  or  displeasing  to  the  Spirit  of  Divine 
Truth. 


60  Jacob's  family  list. 

And  even  Bishop  Colenso  is  obliged  to  grant,  tliat 
soine  inaccuracies  of  tlie  narrative  can.  be  explained,  by 
allowing  for  primitive  modes  of  expression  and  of 
thought.  Thus  Jacob  himself  is  included  among  his 
own  sons  (Gen.  xlvi.  8),  and  among  the  sons  of  Leah 
(ver.  12) — see  Colenso,  p.  67.  But,  if  some  inaccuracies 
of  this  kind  are  manifestly  idioms,  resulting  from  hab- 
its of  thought  impossible  to  us,  why  may  not  the  other 
inaccuracies  result  from  similar,  though  less  obvious, 
peculiarities  ? 

But  his  lordship  is  so  reluctant  to  concede  anything 
in  that  way,  further  than  he  is  absolutely  forced  to  it, 
that  to  avoid  it  he  commits  a  slight,  but  very  suspi- 
cious, inaccuracy  himself.  He  speaks  of  Leah  "  and  the 
other  wives  of  Jacob  "  (p.  67)  as  being  omitted  because 
they  were  dead.  Had  he  said,  the  other  loife^  the  state- 
ment would  have  been  strictly  accurate  (for  the  maids 
of  Rachel  and  Leah  were  in  loco  xixorura^  not  wives  in 
the  proper  sense),  and  would  have  gone  far  toward 
meeting  one  of  his  difficulties.  I^amely,  he  rejects  the 
explanation  that  two  of  the  four  great-grandchildren 
may  have  been  adopted  as  substitutes  for  the  two  de- 
ceased sons  of  Judah,  by  triumphantly  asking,  How  do 
we  account  for  the  insertion  of  the  other  two  ?  "If 
Hezron  and  Hamul  are  substituted  for  Er  and  Onan, 
for  whom  are  Heber  and  MalcMel  ....  xlvi.  17,  sup- 
posed to  be  substituted  ?  "  Now,  supposing  that  Jacob 
had  two  wives  deceased,  the  answer  would  be  easy. 
Therefore,  it  is  convenient  to  Bishop  Colenso  to  speak 
as  if  Jacob  had  more  than  two  wives.  In  short,  he  con- 
tinually asks  the  question.  If  four  names  of  persons 
born  after  the  arrival  in  Egypt  were  inserted  in  the 
List,  why  not  more  than  four  ?     But  he  shuffles  so  as 


Jacob's  family  list.  61 

to  conceal  the  obvious  reply,  that  there  were  but  four 
deceased  persons,  and  consequently  four  substitutes 
were  all  that  were  needed. 

There  are  like  instances  of  unfairness  all  throucrh 
the  discussion.  I  omit  them,  because  I-  do  not  care  to 
accumulate  mere  points.  I  have  shown  that  the  pecu- 
liarities of  Jacob's  List  may  be  accounted  for.  To  at- 
tempt more,  in  so  ancient  a  document,  cannot  be  rea- 
sonably expected. 

I  may  add  that,  in  giving  an  explanation  somewhat 
different  from  that  of  Havernick,  Hengstenberg,  and 
other  learned  authorities,  I  do  not  intend  in  any  way 
to  disparage  their  solutions.  I  have  preferred  my  own, 
merely  because  it  was  easier  for  me  to  express.  A  knot 
may  be  untied  in  a  variety  of  ways.  The  best  way  of 
imtying  it,  time  and  many  minds  alone  can  determine.* 

Besides :  the  more  ways  there  are  of  meeting  a  diffi- 
culty in  Scripture,  the  more  proof  there  is  that  the  diffi- 
culty was  intended,  and  provided  for,  in  the  general 
plan  of  Inspiration.  It  is  not  God's  way  to  save  us  ab- 
solutely from  temptation :  it  is  rather,  with  the  temp- 
tation, to  open  a  way  for  our  escape.  One  way  of  be- 
friending men  would  be  to  allow  no  diseases.  Another 
way  would  be  to  allow  diseases,  but  alongside  of  them 
to  provide  sufficient  remedies.  Providence,  on  the 
whole,  prefers  the  latter  plan.  We  have  no  ground  for 
supposing  that  Divine  Inspiration  would  act  otherwise, 
in  principle,  than  as  Divine  Providence  has  done. 

*  Kennicott,  Skinner  and  others  have  almost  demonstrated, 
from  Gen.  xxxi.  38,  41,  that  Jacob  served  Laban  tico  periods  of 
twenty  years  each.  If  this  be  admitted, — and  the  original  text 
seems  to  favor  it, — all  the  difficulties  connected  with  the  chronol- 
ogy of  Jacob's  life  disappear  at  once :  see  Kennicott's  lieinarlcSf 
&c. :  or,  Barrett's  Synopsis. 


vin, 

A  FEW  OTHER  DIFFICULTIES. 

Bishop  Colenso  has,  undoubtedly,  one  real  difficul- 
ty :  namely,  the  number  of  the  Israelites  who  went  forth 
out  of  Egypt.  But  to  give  effect  to  this,  he  puts  it  at 
the  head  of  a  squad  of  supernumeraries ;  which,  like  a 
skilful  scene-shifter,  he  manages  to  bring  out  again  and 
again,  so  as  to  give  them  the  appearance  of  a  formi- 
dable host. 

Some  of  these  supernumxcraries  I  have  already  con- 
sidered. I  must  dispose  of  the  rest,  before  coming  to 
the  one  which  gives  them  whatever  importance  they 
may  seem  to  possess. 

As  in  the  cases  noticed  befoi'e,  the  difficulty  lies 
mainly  in  that  cavilling  adherence  to  the  bald  and 
naked  letter,  that  treatment  of  words  as  if  they  were 
mere  counters,  that  way  of  spelling  out  a  meaning  with 
the  eyes  and  fingers  instead  of  reading  it  by  the  light 
of  a  sympathetic  mind,  which  is  pardonable  (perhaps) 
in  persons  ignorant  of  letters,  but  which  in  a  Scholar 
and  a  Bishop  is  without  excuse.  Interpret  the  whole 
Bible  in  this  way,  and  the  sacred  Book  becomes  simply 
ridiculous.  Interpret  any  literature  in  this  way,  and  it 
becomes  unintelligible  jargon.     But  no  writer  expects 


A   FEW    OTHER   DIFFICULTIES.  63 

to  be  treated  in  that  way.  Tlie  rough  saying  of  Dr. 
Johnson,  ''  Sir,  I  am  bound  to  furnish  you  arguments, 
not  brains," — "  iiitelligibilia  ^j>?'a^^<?c>,  noii  intelleciunC 
— is  a  sort  of  implied  contract  between  the  writer  and 
the  reader,  which  none  but  the  veriest  pedant  will  fail 
to  respect. 

And  there  is  the  less  excuse  for  this  kind  of  pedan- 
try in  dealing  with  the  Bible,  because  the  sacred  Book 
condemns  it,  and  warns  against  it,  and  in  the  plainest 
terms  shows  up  its  stupidity  and  folly.  For  example, 
the  words  of  wisdom  "  are  all  plain  to  him  that  un- 
derstandeth ; "  but,  "  like  lame  legs  that  will  not 
dance,"  *  "  like  a  thorn  in  a  drunkard's  hand,"  "  so  is 
a  parable  in  the  mouth  of  fools :  "  see  Proverbs  xxvi. 
7,  9.  And  our  Lord,  in  the  I^ew  Testament,  confuting 
the  wretched  literalness  of  the  Pharisees,  invariably  re- 
bukes them  as  "  fools  and  blind."  So  also  the  warn- 
ing of  St.  Paul,  "  ISTot  the  letter,  but  the  spirit."  In 
which  and  numberless  other  passages,  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament and  the  E'ew,  the  necessity  of  intelligent  inter- 
pretation, as  oj)posed  to  the  merely  literal  and  pedan- 
tic, is  so  manifestly  laid  down  that  no  candid  mind  can 
miss  it. 

But  to  come  to  the  "  difficulties  :  " 

(1.)  "  And  Moses  said.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  About 
midnight  will  I  go  out  into  the  midst  of  Egypt :  "  &-e., 
Exod.  xi.  4-8. 

(2.)  "  And  he  went  out  from  Pharaoh  in  great  an- 
ger :  "  xi.  8. 

(3.)  "  And  the  Lord  sjyalce  unto  Moses  and  Aaron  in 
the  land  of  Egypt,  saying,  Tliis  month  shall  be  unto 

*  Literally,  "  the  legs  of  the  lame  are  not  equal." 


64  A   FEW    OTHER   DIFFICULTIES. 

yon,  &c Speak  ye  unto  all  the  congregation  of 

Israel,  saying,  In  the  tenth  day  of  this  month  they  shall 

take  unto  them  every  man  a  lamb for  a  house 

and  ye  shall  keep  it  unto  the  fourteenth  day^^' 

&c.,  xii.  1-11. 

(4.)  "  For  I  will  pass  through  the  land  of  Egypt 
this  night^^  &c.,  xii.  12. 

Now  these  four  passages,  running  consecutively 
and  coupled  by  the  word  "  and,"  might  be  understood 
to  describe  events  following  upon  one  another  in  the 
precise  order  given.  If  we  strain  the  word  and^  they 
must  be  so  understood.  But,  if  so  understood,  they 
make  downrio^ht  nonsense.  The  writer  would  seem  to 
say,  that  Moses,  after  predicting  an  event  which  was  to 
take  place  the  night  immediately  following,  (1),  then 
commanded  the  people  to  spend  four  days  at  least  in 
preparing  for  that  event,  (3),  and  then  added  (4)  that 
the  event  was  to  take  place  immediately  that  same 
night. 

Such  is  the  meaning  if  we  press  to  the  utmost  the 
word  midnight  in  the  first  passage,  the  word  and  in  the 
second  and  third,  and  the  word  this  in  the  fourth. 

Bishop  Colenso  does  not  hesitate  so  to  press  them. 
About  midnight^  he  declares,  must  mean  the  midnight 
of  that  day  on  which  Moses  spake  :  this  night  must  mean 
the  same — and  he  brings  in  the  Hebrew  word  to  prove 
it.  Therefore,  though  the  context  (3)  manifestly  im- 
plies an  interval  of  at  least  four  days,  we  must  not  al- 
low Moses  the  benefit  of  his  context,  but  must  sum- 
marily conclude  (on  the  strength  of  Bishop  Colenso's 
grammar)  that  the  writer  could  not  remember  his  own 
mind  from  one  sentence  to  another. 

Now,  whether  the  writer  of  Exodus  was  an  inspired 


A   FEW    OTHER   DIFFICULTIES.  65 

maD  or  not,  all  the  world  will  grant  that  he  was  not  a 
simpleton.  But,  if  Bishop  Colenso's  argument  in  Chap. 
X.  is  good  for  anything,  it  proves  him  to  have  been 
stupid  to  a  most  extraordinary  degree. 

And,  unfortunately,  if  we  are  to  trust  the  Bishop, 
the  lapse  already  described  is  but  a  small  part  of  the 
stupidity  involved.  In  the  twelve  hours  or  so,  to  which 
Moses  is  arithmetically  pinned  down,  all  the  people  are 
to  receive  their  first  intelligence  of  the  contemplated 
march  ;  all  are  to  prepare  their  lambs — being  instructed 
the  meanwhile  in  the  minutise  of  the  Passover  ;  all  are 
to  borrow  jewels  from  their  neighbors  the  Egyptians  ; 
all  are  to  get  themselves  in  readiness  for  a  move  ;  all 
are  to  start,  with  their  flocks  and  herds,  and  wives  and 
children,  marching  from  Goshen  to  Kameses,  and  from 
Eameses  to  Succoth,  all  on  a  single  day ! 

For,  the  Bishop  says,  ''  This  is,  undovhtedly ^  what 
the  story  in  the  book  of  Exodus  requires  us  to  believe." 
For  which  "  undoubtedly  "  he  refers  us  to  Exod.  xii.  31 
-41, — "  the  children  of  Israel  journeyed  from  Rameses 
to  Succoth," — and  to  ver.  51 — "  it  came  to  pass  the  self- 
same day  that  the  Lord  did  bring  the  children  of  Israel 
out  of  Egypt."  But  if  the  Bishop  lays  such  stress  on 
the  self-same  day^  why  not  lay  an  equal  stress  upon 
the  leading  out  of  Egypt  f  For  the  people  were  not 
fairly  "  out  of  Egypt "  till  they  had  crossed  the  Eed 
Sea.  Why  not  prove,  then,  while  we  are  about  it,  that 
from  Goshen  to  Rameses,  and  from  Rameses  to  Suc- 
coth, and  from  Succoth  to  the  east  shore  of  the  Red 
Sea,  was  all  accomplished  in  one  day's  march  ?  To  be 
sure,  the  context  might  disprove  it,  and  common  sense 
would  revolt  at  it :  but  what  is  "  context "  or  "  com- 
mon sense  "  against  Bishop  Colenso's  grammar  ? 


QQ  A   FEW   OTHER   DIFFICULTIES. 

An  ordinary  reader  knows  that  the  Bible,  like  other 
history,  is  mind  speaking  to  mind,  and  that  when  mind 
thus  speaks  to  mind,  many  details  are  often  left  to  the 
intelligence  of  the  reader.  An  ordinary  reader,  there- 
fore, does  not  scruple  to  allow  for  many  things,  not 
expressly  stated  in  a  condensed  and  raj^id  history. 
Thus,  when  Caesar  describes  a  great  campaign  in  the 
words,  "  Yeni,  Yidi,  Yici,"  we  feel  at  liberty  to  supply 
much,  which  Caesar  does  not  express.  "  Yeni  "  implies 
a  long  journey  by  sea  and  land ;  "  Yidi "  includes  more 
than  the  use  of  a  single  pair  of  eyes ;  "  Yici "  brings  up 
pictures  of  the  toil  and  tug  of  war.  If  we  treat  Moses, 
as  we  would  treat  Csesar,  we  should  not  scruple  to  fill 
up  his  narrative,  in  like  manner,  with  suggestions  of 
simple  details  which  he  may  not  have  thought  it  worth 
while  to  record.  Thus,  if  the  people  were  to  march  out 
of  Egypt  in  haste,  it  is  likely  that  he  took  proper 
measures  beforehand  to  organize*  them  for  such  a  jour- 
ney. If  they -were  to  sacrifice  lambs,  it  is  probable 
(and  the  narrative  expressly  says)  he  gave  them  notice 
in  time.  So  with  other  points  too  numerous  to  men- 
tion. But  Bishop  Colenso  has  one  answer  to  all  such 
charitable  suggestions.  Shylock-like,  he  repeats,  "  It 
is  not  found  in  the  bond."  Thus  Tischendorf  supposes 
— and  it  does  not  seem  to  be  a  violent  stretch  of  imagi- 
nation—that  when  the  people  travelled  some  sixti/ 
miles  in  three  days,  they  took  intervals  of  rest  "  be- 
tween the  three  marching  days."  But  Bishop  Colenso 
allows  no  such  daring  hypothesis.  "  ISTothing  whatever 
is  said  or  implied  about  these  days  of  rest.    There 

*  The  Egyptians  were  splendid  organizers;  and  their  slaves 
were  well  accustomed  to  move  rapidly  in  large  bodies. 


A   FEW    OTHER   DIFFICULTIES.  67 

would  surely  have  been  some  reference  made  to  them, 
if  tliey  really  occurred."  Thus  th^prohably  of  Tischen- 
dorf  is  overwhelmed  by  the  surely  of  Colenso.  The 
object  being  to  prove  Moses  a  dunce,  why  should  the 
game  be  spoiled  by  your  charitable  suppositions  ? 

His  remarks  on  the  "  War  on  Midian,"  Chap.  XXII, 
bring  out  an  objection  of  a  higher  kind :  namely,  the 
cruelty  of  destroying  so  many  people.  This  objection 
is  not  new  :  and  I  answer,  as  it  has  always  been  an- 
swered, that  the  Midianites  were  destroyed,  for  their 
wickedness,  by  the  command  of  God.  It  may  be  cruel 
in  soldiers  to  extirpate  a  band  of  robbers.  But  if  the 
soldiers  are  commanded  so  to  do  by  legitimate  author- 
ity, men  regard  it  as  an  act  of  shnple  justice. 

So  also,  the  Bishop  objects  that  the  Lord  accepted 
a  tribute  of  "  slaves  "  from  among  the  captives,  thus 
giving  a  sort  of  Divine  sanction  to  the  custom  of  hold- 
ing slaves.  That  may  be  so.  But  if  so,  it  merely 
proves  that  God  did  not  consider  "  slavery  "  the  worst 
thing  that  could  happen  to  a  man.  Bishop  Colenso 
may  think  otherwise.  But  his  lordshij)'s  claims  to 
infallibility  are  surely  not  superior  to  those  of  Moses  or 
St.  Paul. 

I  will  not  waste  the  time  of  the  reader,  by  dwelling 
on  the  difficulties  of  Chapters  XI,  XII,  XIII.  They  are 
precisely  of  the  same  character  as  those  already  dis- 
cussed. The  arguments  employed — apart  from  that 
which  rests  on  the  great  member  of  the  Israelites — are 
invariably  of  the  same  arbitrary,  technical,  and  hair- 
splitting descri^Dtion.  If  Moses  is  to  be  interpreted  by 
Bishop  Colenso's  rules,  we  give  up  Moses,  and  with 
him  we  give  np  the  best  writers  of  all  ages,  as  abso- 
lutely indefensible. 


68  A   FEW    OTHER   DIFFICrLTIES. 

Indeed,  I  am  not  sure  but  that  we  shall  be  obliged, 
by  the  same  rules  of  interpretation,  to  give  up  Bishop 
Colenso  himself.  For,  on  p.  224,  in  his  "  concluding 
remarks,"  he  quotes  as  sound  theology,  "  learned  by 
the  direct  teaching  of  the  Spirit  of  God^'^  the  following 
Hindoo  maxim : 

"  Whatsoever  hath  heen  inade^  God  made.  Whatso- 
ever is  to  be  made,  God  will  make.  Whatsoever  is, 
God  maketh." 

But  if  "  God  made  whatsoever  hath  been  made," 
He  must  have  made  among  other  things  the  Five  Books 
of  Moses.  So  that,  after  all,  Bishop  Colenso  proves 
nothing  against  them  by  proving  them  "  unhistorical." 
In  fact,  I  never  could  understand  why  a  Pantheist — 
and  Bishop  Colenso,  on  p.  224,  fairly  enrolls  himself 
among  that  number — should  object  in  any  way  to  the 
Inspiration  of  tlie  Scriptures,  or  should  consider  one 
part  of  the  sacred  volume  more  inspired  than  another. 
If  "  God  is  in  all,"  why  is  He  not  in  the  Bible  ?  And 
if  He  is  in  the  Bible,  why  object  to  the  common  belief 
in  a  Divine  Inspiration  ? 

ISTor  is  the  Bishop  quite  consistent  in  his  professed 
hostility  to  evasions,  and  in  his  devotion  to  matter-of- 
fact  and  literal  interpretation. 

Thus,  in  his  Preface,  he  opposes  the  theory  "  that 
ISToah's  deluge  was  2, partial  one,"  partly  on  the  ground 
that,  "  as  waters  must  find  their  own  level,"  a  flood 
which  covered  the  high  hills  in  one  part  of  the  earth, 
must  have  covered  the  hills  of  the  same  height  in  other 
parts.  He  ignores  the  fact,  that  Hugh  Miller  and  other 
advocates  of  the  partial  deluge  theory  suppose  the  flood 
to  have  been  caused  mainly  by  a  sinliing  of  that  region 
which  was  overflowed  :  a  supposition  which,  being  an 


A   FEW    OTHER   DIFFICULTIES.  G9 

essential  feature  of  the  theory  and  answering  the  Bish- 
op's objection,  he  was  bound  in  common  honesty  to  give. 

There  is  even  a  worse  Lack  of  the  plain  dealing 
which  he  recommends,  in  his  answer  to  the  matter-of- 
fact  objection,  that  our  Lord  Himself  refers  to  Moses 
and  evidently  treats  him  and  his  writings  as  historical. 
This  he  evades  by  a  very  subtle  distinction  between 
His  knowledge  as  God,  and  His  ignorance  as  Man. 
As  God,  He  knew  Moses  to  be  "  unhistorical ; "  as 
Man,  He  knew  nothing  about  it. 

In  the  same  way,  because  it  suits  the  Bishop's  pur- 
pose to  do  away  with  the  most  obvious  meaning  of  St. 
Stephen's  declaration  in  Acts  vii.  6,  he  interprets  the 
passage  in  precisely  the  same  way  that  he  calls  "  eva- 
sive," when  it  occurs  in  other  writers.  "  At  first  sight 
....  it  would  seem  that  Abraham's  descendants  were 
to  be  afflicted  for  400  years,  in  one  land,"  &c.  He  then 
shows  that  the  seeming  meaning  is  not  the  correct  one. 
His  reasoning,  in  this  instance,  p.  153,  is  probably  cor- 
rect. But  if  he  had  reasoned  the  same  way  in  all  other 
instances,  with  similar  allowance  for  the  force  of  idioms, 
most  of  his  difiiculties  would  easily  have  been  removed. 

Again,  he  declares,  p.  51,  that  "  the  notion  of 
miTaeiLlous  or  super7iaticral  interferences  does  not  pre- 
sent to  (his)  mind  the  difiiculties  which  it  seems  to  pre- 
sent to  some."  Yet,  if  we  appeal  to  the  Divine  Power, 
as  solving  the  difficulties  of  the  Exodus,  the  Bishop 
allows  no  force  to  anything  of  the  sort. 

A  writer  thus  careless  of  his  own  consistency,  and 
so  subtle  and  evasive  when  it  suits  his  purpose,  would 
fare  badly,  if  judged  by  the  rigid  rules  which  he  ap- 
plies to  Moses. 


IX. 

SCRIPTURAL  ARITHMETIC. 

I  COME  now  to  what  I  have  called  the  "  one  real 
difficnltj  "  of  Bishop  Colenso's  book. 

It  is  the  difficulty,  and  (perhaps)  the  impossibility 
of  ascertaining  the  true  number  of  the  Israelites,  at  the 
time  of  the  Exodus.  The  question  with  regard  to  it 
may  be  briefly  summed  up  as  follows  : 

While  the  number  of  the  entire  peoj)le  is  nowhere 
given,  we  are  yet  furnished  with  two  kinds  of  data^ 
from  which  it  may  be  inferred.  These  data^  however, 
seem  intricate,  confused,  and  not  easily  reconcilable 
with  one  another.  I  will  proceed  at  once  to  the  con- 
sideration of  the  first  "  kind,"  reserving  the  second  to 
another  chapter. 

There  are  statements  in  numerals  :  as  in  Exod.  xii. 
37,  which  gives  600,000  men  ;  Exod.  xxxviii.  25-28, 
where  there  are  603,550,  this  sum  being  checked  more- 
over by  the  tribute  paid,  namely  603,550  bekahs ; 
Num.  i.  46,  where  the  number  of  each  tribe  is  given, 
and  all  are  added  up  to  the  sum  of  603,550 ;  Num. 
xxvi.  51,  the  last  year  in  the  wilderness,  where  again 
the  tribes  are  given,  and  all  come  up  to  the  amount  of 
601,730.     These  numbers  stand  for  the  fighting  men. 


SCKIPTURAL   ABITIIMETIC.  71 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  whole  number  of  "  first- 
born, from  a  month  old  and  upwards,"  which  on  statis- 
tical principles  ought  to  be  at  least  one-fourth  of  the 
entire  male  population,  is  in  Num.  iii.  43,  computed  at 
22,273,  not  much  more  than  one-thirtieth  of  the  adult 
lighting  men.  Tliis  number  also  seems  to  be  certified, 
Jirst^  by  the  purpose  for  which  the  census  was  taken, 
namely,  that  "  all  the  first-born  of  the  males  "  might  be 
redeemed ;  secondly^  by  the  exactness  of  the  odd  num- 
ber, 273,  which  would  indicate  a  count  of  the  closest 
kind  ;  thirdly^  by  the  number  of  the  Levites  (Exod.  iii. 
39)  substituted  for  the  first-born,  to  wit,  22,000 ;  and 
fourthly  (Exod.  iii.  46)  by  the  special  arrangement 
made  for  the  273  who  could  not  find  Levite  substitutes. 

Now,  if  we  allow  the  adult  males  to  be  07ie  in  four 
of  the  population,  and  the  "  first-born  "  to  be  one  in 
seven,  we  shall  arrive  at  two  quite  diflerent  results.  By 
the  one,  we  shall  get  a  population  of  about  2,500,000  : 
by  the  other,  of  about  150,000. 

To  account  for  this  diff"erence,  we  may  suppose  the 
word  "  first-born  "  was  used  in  some  conventional  sense, 
for  a  privileged  class,  and  did  not  apply  to  cdl  the  eldest 
sons  in  the  nation.  It  may  have  applied  only  to  the 
eldest  of  certain  families  of  purer  blood  :  not  to  "  the 
mixed  multitude,"  Exod.  xii.  38,  which  came  out  with 
them  from  Egypt.  But  this  is  only  a  guess  ;  and  other 
conjectures  which  have  been  framed  seem  hardly  to 
cover  the  difficulty."^ 

If  we  could  suppose,  however,  that  "  thousands  " 
and  "  ten-thousands  "  w^ere  but  vague  expressions  of 
multitude,  like  the  word  legions  in  the  New  Testament 
or  myriads  among  the  Greeks,  the  difficulty  would  be 
much  diminished,  if  not  absolutely  done  away.     And 

*  See  Appendix  A. 


72  SCRIPTUEAL   ARITHMETIC. 

there  is  much  in  the  Scripture  style  to  make  such  a 
supposition  probable.  Thus,  when  Moses  speaks  (Deut. 
xxxiii.  IT)  of  ''  the  ten-thousands  of  Ephraim  and  the 
thousands  of  Manasseh,"  we  would  infer  at  once,  from 
the  modern  meaning  of  those  numbers,  that  Ephraim 
was  ie7i  tirnes  more  numerous  than  Manasseh  :  we  find 
actually,  however — according  to  that  later  census  in 
Num.  xxvi.  34,  37,  which  Moses  had  befoj-e  him  when 
he  spoke — that  Manasseh  was  by  far  the  more  nume- 
rous of  the  two.  In  the  same  way,  in  Num.  x.  36,  I 
find  Moses  speaking  of  the  "  ten  thousand  thousands  of 
Israel :  "  an  expression  so  Oriental,  that  our  Yersion 
very  properly  reduces  it  to  "  the  'many  thousands." 

Such  vagueness  of  expression  leads  one  to  suspect 
that  when  the  census  was  taken  (Num.  i.  4,  16,  &c.)  hy 
the  "  heads  of  thousands^''  these  "  thousands  "  of  which 
they  were  "  heads  "  may  have  been  simply  what  we 
would  call  "  regiments  "  or  something  of  the  kind  :  a 
"  regiment  "  being  the  synonym  of  "  a  thousand"  on 
the  Army  List,  but  not  by  any  means  necessarily  con- 
tainiDg  that  number  of  men.  This  suspicion  is 
strengthened  by  the  fact,  that  the  "  heads  of  thou- 
sands "  are  also  described,  in  the  same  connection,  as 
heads  of  houses  or  families  :  see  ver.  4.  But  it  is  not 
probable  that  each  "  house  "  contained  a  round  thou- 
sand, in  the  arithmetical  sense  of  the  word.  It  seems 
more  probable,  that  it  was  counted  for  a  thousand,  in 
a  purely  conventional  sense  :  so  that  the  returns  of  the 
census  were  made  in  "  thousands,"  or  in  "  hundreds  " 
corresj) ending  to  ''  companies,"  by  the  "  heads  of 
thousands  "  and  "  captains  of  hundreds,"  according  to 
some  rule  known  among  themselves  but  not  easily 
ascertainable  in  modern  times. 


SCRIPTURAL    ARITHMETIC.  73 

In  sliort,  the  "  tens  "  with  their  '^  captains  of  tens," 
the  "  hundreds  "  with  their  "  captains  of  hundreds,"* 
the  "  thousands  "  with  their  "  heads  of  thousands," 
may  have  been  as  indefinite,  in  respect  of  number,  as 
hamlets,  villages,  towns  /  ov  files,  companies,  regiments  / 
or  any  other  words  of  acknowledged  but  vague  divis- 
ion. The  military  language  of  our  times  may  give 
some  idea  of  the  uncertainty  of  such  expressions.  But, 
it  is  probable,  that  our  military  system  is  much  more 
exact — in  a  mathematical  way — than  was  the  militia 
system  of  Moses. 

At  all  events,  whatever  theory  we  may  adopt,  there 
can  be  no  doubt,  that  not  only  in  the  days  of  Moses, 
but  for  a  long  time  after,  all  the  round  numbers  were 
used  in  a  most  vague  and  bewildering  manner.  Thus, 
in  the  Xew  Testament,  where  St.  James  (Acts  xxi.  20) 
speaks  of  "  thousands  "  of  Jews,  the  original  Greek 
uses  the  word  "  myriads :  "  that  is,  according  to  tlie 
Lexicons,  "  ten-thousands."  So,  in  the  Revelation,  St. 
John  sees  in  vision  an  army  of  tioo  hundred  thousand 
thousand :  a  phrase  that  would  hardly  have  been  used 
by  the  most  daring  poet,  in  an  arithmetical  age.  In 
short,  if  we  look  into  a  Concordance  for  the  vrord 
"  thousand,"  we  find  a  few  places  in  which  it  may  pos- 
sihhj  he  an  exact  expression  of  number ;  and  even  the 
word  "  ten-thousand  "  may  he  so  understood  in  one  or 
two  instances :  but  in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  the 
meaning  is  so  plainly  vague,  that  to  press  the  word 
mathematically  seems  little  less  than  absurd. 

*  England,  under  king  Alfred,  had  its  "  titbings  "  and  "  hun- 
dreds," presided  over  by  a  decamis,  or  hundred-man.  Some  of 
the  "  Hundreds  "  still  remain, 

4 


74  SCKIPTFRAL   ARITHMETIC. 

But  Bisliop  Coleiiso  saves  me  the  trouble  of  enlarg- 
ing upon  this  view  of  the  subject.  After  quoting  a 
passage  of  Josephus,  (p.  207,  note,)  in  which  that  writer 
speaks  of  "  many  ten-thousands,"  at  the  same  time 
referring  to  a  previous  statement  where  the  number 
stands  as  "  above  13,000,"  the  critic  goes  on  to  add : 
''  In  fact,  Josephus'  numbers  are  very  frequently  as 
extravagant  and  unreal  as  those  of  the  Scripture  w2-iters. 
....  It  is  impossible  for  us  not  to  perceive  that  a 
systematic  habit  of  exaggeration  in  respect  of  numbers 
prevails  among  Hebrew  writers  of  history,  probably 
from  not  realizing  to  their  own  minds  the  actual  mean- 
ing and  magnitude  of  the  numbers  employed." 

The  Bishop  states  the  fact  correctly,  though  invidi- 
ously, and  hints  at  the  probable  explanation.  Not 
only  "  the  Hebrew  waiters,"  but  all  writers  of  anti- 
quity ;  not  only  the  "  writers  of  history,"  but  writers 
of  every  kind,  had  "  a  habit  in  respect  of  numbers," 
which,  however,  I  will  not  call  a  ^'  habit  of  exaggera- 
tion :  "  at  least,  not  of  exaggeration  for  any  purpose 
of  deception.  It  was  more  "  probably  "  a  habit  of 
^'  not  realizing  to  their  0Y\n\  minds  the  actual  meaning 
of  numbers  :  "  that  is,  the  meaning  in  a  modern  scien- 
tific sense.  In  fact,  they  knew  but  little  of  arithmetic. 
Their  counting  and  calculating  was  a  slow  and  tedious 
and  uncertain  process.  Men  who  have  bound  the  ages 
by  an  intellectual  spell,  who  still  reign  paramount  in 
the  world  of  thought,  might  have  been  gravelled  by  a 
simple  sum  in  the  Rule  of  Multiplication.''^     Hence  a 

*  It  has  been  doubted,  on  very  good  grounds,  whether  Homer's 
arithmetic  extended  beyond  an  hundred.  It  is  certain,  that  he 
never  added  up  his  glorious  catalogue  of  men  anid  ships :  or,  if  he 


SCRTPTITRAL    AKITIIMETTC.  75 

habit  of  mind  and  speech — for  speech  in  all  ao-es  is 
but  the  image  of  mind : — which  to  us,  at  the  present 
day,  is  well-nigh  inexplicable.  "We  see  something  like 
it,  however,  in  every  intelligent  child.  To  such  an  one 
a  round  number  is  little  more  tlian  a  figure  of  speech. 
It  stands  for  a  vague  idea  which  looms  up  in  the 
imagination,  but  what  the  idea  is,  or  wliat  its  numeri- 
cal value,  a  "  no7i  sine  Diis  animoms  hifans  "  never 
troubles  himself  to  ask. 

E'ow  the  ancients,  in  some  respects,  were  little  bet- 
ter or  worse  than  children.  In  the  matter  of  numerals 
especially,  they  were,  to  use  the  language  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  "  fanciful  and  puerile."  A  Pythagoras, 
a  Plato,  a  St.  Ambrose,  a  St.  Augustine,  could  value 
numbers  chiefly  for  the  mysteries  they  contained :  - 
and  what  cyphering  they  ever  did  was  solely  in  pursuit 
of  these  sacred  meanings.      JSTow,  can  we  appreciate 

did,  he  found  a  sum-total  which  would  have  merited  the  birch  in 
a  modern  children's  school, — namely, 

"  Myriads  as  are  tlie  leaves  and  flowers  in  spring." 

*  As  I  refer  more  than  once  to  this  mystic  treatment  of  num- 
bers, I  will  give  one  example  of  it.  St.  Augustine,  applying  it  to 
the  153  "  great  fishes  "  of  John  xxi.  11,  says  (in  substance)  :  Seven 
is  "  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit,"  Ten  "  the  number  of  the  command- 
ments;" the  two  added  together  make  Seventeen,,  the  symbol  of 
those  who  through  the  Spirit  do  Ilis  Commandments.  "  Now,  add 
up" — and  as  soon  as  the  Saint  said  this,  the  congregation  immedi- 
ately began  to  "add  up,"  on  their  fingers — "all  the  numerals  from 
one  to  seventeen  inclusive,  and  you  will  find  the  sum  to  be  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  and  three.  Therefore,  153  is  the  symbol  of  all  who 
are  to  be  saved  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  time."  Examples 
of  this  kind  abound  in  the  Patristic  writings ;  and  there  are  few 
numbers,  in  the  Old  Testament  or  New^,  that  were  not  subjected 
to  this  cabalistic  treatment. 


76  SCRIPTURAL   ARITHMETIC. 

this  ?  Can  we  by  any  efibrt  enter  into  sncli  a  habit  of 
mind  ? 

It  is  hard,  undoubtedly,  to  realize  it  to  ou7'  minds  : 
but  to  the  ancients  it  was  so  real,  that  for  them  to  con- 
ceive of  numbers  precisely  as  we  do,  would  have  been 
perhaps  still  harder. 

At  all  events,  the  fact  stares  us  in  the  face,  that  not 
the  Hebrews  only,  as  Bishop  Colenso  unfairly  puts  it, 
but  the  ancients  generally,  used  numbers  in  a  most 
inexplicable  way.  Who  believes,  at  the  present  day, 
that  the  army  of  Xerxes  numbered  over  a  million  ? 
Who  imagines  that  the  chronology  of  the  Egyptians, 
Hindoos  or  Chinese,  was  constructed  on  the  rules  of 
modern  arithmetic  ?  Who  ever  reads  an  ancient  his- 
tory without  quietly  putting  the  "  sacred  factor  "  teii 
under  most  of  the  figures  in  it  ?  * 

Bishop  Colenso,  then,  is  correct  in  speaking  of  the 
ancient  practice  in  this  way,  as  a  sort  of  "  habit."  But 
what  does  that  "  habit  "  mean  ?  It  may  mean  that  the 
ancients  were  prone  to  exaggerate.  Or,  it  may  mean 
simply,  that  numbers,  and  especially  the  high  round 
numbers,  have  gradually  undergone  in  process  of  time 
a  change  of  value  or  meaning.  Because  a  word  re- 
mains in  a  language  from  age  to  age,  it  does  not  follow 

*  Lee,  in  his  learned  work  on  Inspiration,  p.  365,  similarly  ap- 
plies the  factor  10  as  a  divisor  of  some  of  the  round  numbers  in 
the  Chronicles.  He  does  it  on  the  ground  of  probable  corruptions 
in  the  text.  The  same  divisor  may  be  applied  so  widely  to  ancient 
numbers,  that  I  am  inclined  to  rest  its  application  on  a  broader 
ground ;  and  to  suppose  that  ten — the  symbol  of  infinity — was 
used  very  largely  as  a  sacred  multiple.  Such  a  habit,  puzzling  as 
it  is  to  modern  times,  may  have  been  quite  intelligible  to  con- 
temporaries. 


SCRIPTURAL   ARITHMETIC.  77 

that  its  sense  remains  the  same.  The  process  by  which 
a  term  assumes  gradually  a  more  exact  and  scientihc 
meaning,  is  extremely  difficult  to  trace.  And  espe- 
cially is  it  difficult  with  regard  to  words  of  measure,  or 
weight,  or  uuniber.  But  most  of  all  is  it  difficult,  when 
we  have  to  grope  our  way  back  through  ages  whoso 
habits  of  mind  are  as  different  from  ours,  w^ith  regard 
to  all  matters  of  science,  as  the  thoughts  of  an  imagina- 
tive child  from  those  of  a  pragmatic  adult. 

Besides  this,  numerals  are  more  exposed,  than  other 
signs,  to  accidental  corruptions,  or  intentional  altera- 
tions. Kor  is  the  frequent  repetition  of  a  number  any 
absolute  security  against  this  danger.  A  corruption  in 
one  place  may  easily  lead  to  an  intended  correction  in 
another  :  and  a  later  scribe  may  carry  out  the  correc- 
tion into  all  other  places  where  he  may  fancy  it  to  be 
needed.  Especially  might  this  take  place,  if  the  scribes 
should  happen  to  be,  as  most  of  the  ancients  were, 
under  the  influence  of  some  mystic  science  of  numbers. 
This  would  give  to  their  corrections  a  systematic  ap- 
pearance. 

Besides  this,  again  :  if  numbers  were  used  so  com- 
monly in  a  vague,  and  perhaps  mystic  sense,  we  cannot 
be  certain  in  all  cases  that  the  sacred  writers  them- 
selves were  inspired  to  go  against  the  prevailing  use, 
or  to  antedate  the  exactness  of  a  later  age.  The  Proph- 
ets certainly  used  mystic  numbers.  If  the  historians 
sometimes  did  the  same,  it  would  be  natural  at  a  time 
when  "  statistics "  were  little  cared  for ;  and  might 
lessen  the  value  of  their  writings  so  far  as  "  statistics  " 
are  concerned  ;  but  would  weigh  nothing  against  their 
general  historical  character.  On  this  point,  however,  I 
propose  to  speak  more  fully  in  another  place. 


78  SCRIPTUKAL   AEITHMETIC. 

Against  such  hypotheses  of  a  vague  or  mystic  use 
of  numbers,  or  of  corruptions  of  the  numbers  original- 
ly used,  there  seems  to  be  one  strong  objection.  In 
Exod.  xxxviii.  25,  26,  the  number  of  the  men  is  checked 
by  a  correspwiding  number  of  heJcahs — the  "  bekah  " 
being  the  offering  of  a  man — contributed  to  the  use  of 
the  Tabernacle.  But,  here  again,  the  general  principle 
applies.  What  a  "  thousand  "  meant,  at  so  remote  a 
period,  when  applied  to  "  bekahs,"  may  be  as  uncertain 
as  when  the  same  word  is  applied  to  men.  A  certain 
weight  of  bekahs,  or  a  certain  measure^  may  have 
counted  as  a  "  thousand."  A  "  pound  sterling,"  in 
English,  might  easily  be  imagined — especially  at  some 
remote  period  when  the  English  shall  be  a  dead  lan- 
guage— to  mean  actually  a  "  pound  "  of  something  now 
used  as  money.  But  whatever  may  have  been  its  ori- 
ginal use,  it  actually  means  something  less  than  one- 
third  of  a  pound.  How  far  the  same  conventional  use 
of  words  may  have  gone,  in  the  days  of  Moses,  espe- 
cially of  words  relating  to  weight,  or  measure,  or  num- 
ber, is  a  question  by  no  means  easy  to  settle.  This 
much,  however,  may  be  safely  said.  If  numbers  were 
used  at  all  in  a  conventional  or  mystic  w^ay,  either  by 
the  original  writers  or  by  subsequent  correctors  of  the 
Bible  text,  the  use  would  be  made  to  apply  to  the  "  be- 
kahs," as  well  as  to  the  "  men,"  in  the  instance  men- 
tioned above :  so  that  the  question  of  the  actual  num- 
ber would  remain  as  open  as  ever. 

It  is  certain  enough,  that  not  oniy  the  Pentateuch, 
but  most  of  the  books  of  the  Bible,  down  to  the  Apoca- 
lypse, give  evidence  of  a  peculiar  hahlt — a  habit  which 
to  our  minds  is  but  vaguely  intelligible — Vv^itii  regard 
to  the  use  of  numerals.     And  this  habit,  moreover, 


SCRIPTUJiAL   AKITHMETIC.  79 

seems  to  have  a  method  in  it.  The  multiple  ten  seems 
to  abound.  Other  sacred  multiples,  from  2  to  10, — for 
almost  all  the  digits  had  well-known  mystic  values, — 
seem  to  be  present  in  places  where  a  modern  reader 
would  hardly  think  of  looking  for  them.  Thus,  to  take 
a  few  instances  of  the  larger  numbers :  there  are  armies 
of  Israelites,  ranging  from  307,500  to  400,000,  and 
580,000,  and  800,000,  and  1,000,000,  and  even  1,160,000 

warriors ;  2  Chron.  xiii.  3 xvii.  14-19.     In 

the  same  way  (2  Chron.  xiii.  17)  "  there  fell  down  slain 
500,000  chosen  men."  So,  in  other  places,  there  are 
captives  and  spoils  in  the  same  stupendous  proportions : 
all  under  circumstances,  moreover,  which  would  hardly 
seem  to  require  one  tenth  of  the  number  given.  A  few 
such  instances  are  quoted  by  Bishop  Colenso  and  other 
skeptics  to  bring  the  Bible  into  contempt.  A  few  are 
quoted  also  by  Lee  and  other  defenders  of  the  Bible,  to 
show  the  probability  of  interpolations.  I  do  not  know 
that  any  one  of  recent  writers  has  gone  into  the  subject 
thoroughly,  with  a  view  to  ascertain  how  far  there  is  a 
system  in  the  Bible  numerals,  or  what  that- system  is, 
or  how  far  a  fair  application  of  it  might  furnish  reliable 
datcc  for  the  reduction  of  the  ancient  figures  to  modern 
statistical  terms.  Tlie  early  Christian  fathers  assumed 
that  there  was  a  system  in  the  sacred  numerals.  The 
best-known  moderns  have  assumed  the  contrary.  I 
doubt  whether  there  has  been  any  such  thorough  and 
methodical  investigation,  as  would  prove  which  of  these 
assumptions  is  the  better  grounded. 

Now,  to  bring  the  question  to  a  point :  In  an  essay 
like  this,  which  aims  to  be  as  practical  as  the  nature  of 
the  subject  will  allow,  it  is  not  necessary  to  show  which 
of  the  hypotheses  above  suggested  is  most  likely  to  be 


80  SCRIPTUKAL   ARITHMETIC. 

tlie  true  one.  It  will  be  enongli  to  say,  in  a  case  of 
sucli  acknowledged  difficulty^  tliat  any  one  of  tliem  is 
far  more  reasonable,  and  far  easier  of  belief,  tlian  tlie 
conclusions  to  wbich  we  are  led  by  Bishop  Colenso's 
reasoning. 

For,  if  we  are  to  credit  liim,  the  writer  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch was  so  careful  witli  regard  to  numbers,  and 
so  exj)ert  an  arithmetician,  as  to  clieck  his  principal 
statements  w^ith  the  most  business-like  precision.  At 
the  same  time,  he  was  so  careless  and  inexpert,  as  to 
commit  errors,  frequent,  pal23able,  astounding,  beyond 
the  power  of  the  wildest  imagination  to  conceive  of,  in 
a  man  of  sense. 

Thus,  Chapter  XYIII,  "  Dan,  in  the  first  generation, 
has  one  son,"  which  in  the  fourth  generation,  Bishop  Co- 
lenso  shows,  would  amount  to  about  "  27  warriors  :  "  yet 
Moses  gives  him  an  increase  of  "  62,Y00  warriors."  In 
the  same  way,  "  the  4  sons  of  Kohath  increased  in  the 
third  (Aaron's)  generation  to  8  :  "  yet  (according  to 
Bishop  Colenso)  the  same  writer  who  gives  this  moder- 
ate increase  for  three  generations  so  multiplies  the  same 
family  in  the  fourth  (that  is,  his  own)  generation,  that 

"  6  men  must  have  had  between  them 2,748 

sons,  and  we  must  suppose  about  the  same  number  of 
daughters."  And  there  are  (according  to  Bishoj)  Co- 
lenso) other  like  blunders  of  the  same  gigantic  dimen- 
sions, all  accompanied  by  plain  matter-of-fact  state- 
ments alongside  of  them  in  the  text,  which  effectually 
expose  their  error. 

Xow  the  writer  of  the  Pentateuch  was  undoubtedly 
a  man  of  sense.  Though  he  may  not  have  been  a  sta- 
tistician, in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word,  yet  he  well 
knew  the  rate  at  which  families  increase  in  one  or  two 


SCKIPTURAL   ARITHMETIC.  81 

generations^  and  his  study  and  observation  evidently  lay 
mucli  in  that  particular  line.  Could  such  a  man,  then, 
make  such  a  blunder  as  that  which  Bishop  Coleiiso  ex- 
poses ?  Is  it  not  more  likely,  that  the  Bishop  has  mis- 
understood him  ?  May  it  not  have  been  that  Moses, 
like  other  historians,  omitted  many  facts  and  names 
which,  if  instead  of  writing  history  he  had  been  dictat- 
ing a  sum  in  arithmetic,  he  might  have  thought  proper 
to  mention  ? 

Or,  if  this  supposition  will  not  ansvv'cr,  may  it  not 
be  that,  w^ith  regard  to  his  use  of  numbers,  there  is 
something  which  is  not  understood  by  the  modern 
mind  :  something  which  scholars  and  interpreters  have 
as  yet  not  thoroughly  explored  ? 

This  last  was,  in  the  main,  the  position  taken  by 
Origen  and  other  interpreters  of  the  early  Church. 
They  reasoned  that  if  a  good  writer  is  so  interpreted  as 
to  commit  him  to  an  absurdity,  the  fault  is  more  likely 
to  be  in  the  mode  of  interpretatio7i  than  in  the  writer 
himself.  Hence,  as  the  alleged  "  absurdities  "  of  Scrip- 
ture are  always  found  in  a  too  literal  rendering  of  idi- 
oms, phrases  or  numbers,  these  idioms  and  numbers 
should  not  be  taken  to  the  letter,  except  in  cases  where 
it  can  be  shown  that  it  was  intended  they  should  be  so 
taken.  From  this  maxim  sprang  that  mystic  interpre- 
tation of  Scriptural  numbers,  so  common  among  the 
Fathers. 

Moderns  are  averse  to  the  mystic  science,  and  pre- 
fer the  hypothesis  of  "  corruptions  "  or  "  interpolations." 
The  Hebrew  letters  which  stand  for  numerals  may  be 
corrupted  by  a  line  or  dot.  Many  of  them,  we  know 
from  the  evidence  of  Manuscripts,  have  been  so  cor- 
rupted. Where  there  is  a  real  discrepancy,  then,  either 
4* 


82  SCKIPTUEAL   ARITHMETIC. 

among  the  numbers  themselves,  or  between  the  num- 
bers and  the  general  drift  of  the  text,  it  is  easier  to  sup- 
pose that  Manuscripts  have  suffered  in  the  lapse  of  ages,* 
than  that  a  sensible  writer,  like  Moses,  should  have 
committed  an  egregious  blunder. 

I  think  there  is  room  for  all  these  hypotheses  :  for, 
of  the  figures  employed  in  Scripture,  some  are  doubt- 
less corrupt ;  some  are  vague ;  some  are  mystic  :  and 
to  decide  which  is  which  in  any  given  case  requires  all 
the  tact  and  learning  that  Interpretation,  as  a  science, 
can  bring  to  bear  on  the  subject. 

How  this  admission  affects  the  Pentateuch  as  a  col- 
lection of  insph'ed  and  historical  books,  I  shall  treat 
more  precisely  in  the  Chapter  after  the  next. 

*  The  differences  among  the  Hebrew,  Samaritan  and  Septuagint 
copies  of  the  Scriptures,  are  most  conspicuous  in  respect  of  nu- 
merals. 


X. 


FACTS  BEAKING  ON  THE  NUMBER  OF  THE 
ISRAELITES. 

I  PROCEED  to  say  a  few  words  on  the  second  kind  of 
data^  referred  to  in  the  beginning  of  the  last  Chapter : 
namely,  the  facts  or  statements  bearing  incidentall}^  on 
the  number  of  the  Israelites,  to  be  found  here  or  there 
through  the  Pentateuch. 

In  Deut.  vii.  7,  Moses  declares  to  the  Israelites,  that 
God  did  not  choose  them  "by  reason  of  their  number  : 
"  because,"  says  he,  "  ye  were  the  fewest  of  all  people." 
In  the  same  way,  he  pictures  the  people  saying  of  the 
Canaanites,  vii.  17,  "  These  nations  are  more  than  I." 
In  the  same  way  again,  vii.  22,  the  Canaanites  were 
not  to  be  consumed  at  once^  lest  the  wild  beasts  should 
"  increase  upon  "  their  destroyers.  But,  as  Bishop  Co- 
lenso  shows,  a  population  that  could  furnish  600,000 
warriors  could  not  be  considered  either  few  or  weak, 
or  insufficient  to  expel  the  beasts,  in  so  small  a  country 
as  Palestine. 

To  this.  Bishop  Colenso  adds  a  number  of  facts, 
which  he  grossly  exaggerates  :  such  as  "  the  size  of  the 
Tabernacle  compared  with  the  number  of  the  Congre- 


84:  NUMBER    OF    THE    ISRAELITES . 

gation,"  and  other  things  of  the  same  sort,  which  have 
been  abeady  considered. 

But  even  after  all  necessary  deductions  for  the 
Bishop's  exaggerations,  there  can  be  no  question  that 
these  facts,  taken  as  a  whole,  are  of  a  character  to  in- 
cline ns  to  a  smaller  estimate  of  the  number  of  the  Isra- 
elites than  that  which  is  inferred  from  the  nlention  of 
the  600,000  w^arriors.  The  Exodns,  indeed,  was  a  mirac- 
ulous work  throughout.  The  greater  miracles  in  it  may 
therefore  seem  to  imply  such  lesser  ones  as  might  be 
needed.  Yet  we  are  naturally  averse  to  the  suj^position 
of  miracles  not  recorded.  And  so  far  as  the  Bishop's 
reasoning  tends  merely  to  clear  up  a  difficult  question, 
and  to  show  what  evidence  there  is  in  favor  of  a  smaller 
estimate  of  the  Mosaic  census,  it  is  all  allowable 
enough. 

I  object  to  it  only  so  far  as  it  is  conducted  in  a  nar- 
row, carping,  one-sided  frame  of  mind.  But,  unfortu- 
nately, such  is  the  tone  of  the  discussion,  from  the  be- 
ginning to  the  end. 

It  is  in  this  spirit  that  the  Bishop  urges  the  interest- 
ing inquiry  as  to  the  lyrolmhle  increase  of  JacoVs  seven- 
ty^ during  the  time  of  their  sojourn  in  Egypt.  It  will 
be  enough  to  expose  two  of  its  fallacies. 

Fh'st :  He  scornfully  ignores  the  evidence,  which  is 
by  no  means  contemptible,  in  favor  of  the  longer  of  the 
two  periods  commonly  allotted  to  that  sojourn.  The 
shorter  period  suits  his  purpose.  He  assumes  it,  there- 
fore, as  the  basis  of  his  calculations. 

Secondly:  He  disdainfully  rejects,  against  proba- 
bilities of  the  most  natural  kind,  the  idea  that  others 
hesides  the  seventy  may  have  settled  in  the  land  of 
Goshen.    Abraham's  "  company  "  was  at  least  318  men. 


NUMBER   OF   THE   ISRAELITES.  85 

Isaac  moved  as  a  prince  among  the  princes  of  Canaan. 
Jacob  was  a  thrifty  man,  and  lived  certainly  on  good 
terms  with  his  neighbors  the  Canaanites.  It  is  highly 
probable,  then,  that  Jacob,  like  his  great  forefathers, 
had  besides  his  immediate  family  a  large  circle  of  allies 
or  dependents.*  The  famine  which  drove  him  into 
Egypt  would  equally  touch  them  ;  and  it  would  have 
been  the  strangest  thing  in  the  world  if  at  some  time 
during  the  seven  years  of  dearth  they  had  not  followed 
him  in  his  migration. 

But  Bishop  Colenso  does  not  find  this  in  the  record. 
Moses  does  not  sai/ thut  any  one  came  to  Goshen,  either 
with  or  after  Jacob,  save  the  seventy  only.  It  is  a 
sum  in  arithmetic  based  on  the  number  70,  and  on 
the  basis  of  70  the  sum  must  be  cyphered  out. 

Moreover,  these  70  and  their  descendants  must  marry 
in  their  own  family.  Bishoj)  Colenso's  sum  will  not 
sufler  them  to  do  otherwise.  To  be  sure,  Joseph  had 
married  out  of  the  house ;  as  also  Simeon,  Gen.  xlvi.  10  : 
but  it  is  not  written  that  any  one  after  them  ventured 
to  do  the  same.  Though  the  daughters  in  Jacob's  List 
were  not  sufficient  for  one  thirtieth  of  the  sons,  yet  we 
are  not  told  that  the  sons  looked  for  wives  elsewhere. 
It  is  therefore  to  be  assumed  that  they  did  not.  The 
data  furnished  by  Moses  must  be  the  terms  of  the  cal- 
culation. To  assume  anything  beyond  is  to  be  guilty 
of  an  evasion. 

Such  is  the  iron  rule,  on  which  Bishop  Colenso 
cyphers  out  the  increase  of  Jacob's  family.  Is  it  to  be 
wondered  at  that  he  should  bring  it  to  the  small 
amount  of  less  than  5,000  men  \ 

It  would  be  a  waste  of  time  to  argue  against  results 

*  See  Gen.  xxx.  43  ;  xxxiv.  29  ;  xxxv.  5. 


86  NUMBEK   OF   THE   ISRAELITES. 

based  ujDon  such  assumptions."^  I  therefore  say  nothing 
of  the  similar  cyphering  in  Chapters  X  VIII-XXI.  In  all 
such  cases,  the  Bishop's  reasoning  is  merely  a  repetition 

of   the    well-known    infidel    puzzle, — Gen.   iv.    17, 

"  Whence  did  Cain  get  his  wife  ?  "     If,  in  a  condensed 

*  Though  quite  unnecessary,  I  will  mention  a  few  more  of  the 
assumptions  made  by  the  Bishop,  in  cyphering  out  the  increase  of 
Jacob's  family.     1.  For  215  years  he  assumes  only  4  generations,  p. 
180 :  whereas,  at  the  rate  of  80  years,  there  would  be  7  generations. 
It  is  a  well-known  fact,  that  a  laboring  and  servile  population,  like 
that  of  the  Israelites  in  Egypt,  increase  early  and  rapidly,  becom- 
ing grandparents  not  unfrequently  before  they  arrive  at  40  years 
of  age.     This  is  particularly  the  case  when  the  means  of  subsist^ 
ence  are  as  plentiful  as  they  would  seem  to  have  been  in  Goshen. 
2.  He  assumes^  for  the  rate  of  increase,  the  present  English  rate, 
namely  23  per  cent,  in  10  years,  p.  171 :  whereas  it  is  well  known, 
that  when  population  begins  to  press  upon  the  means  of  subsist- 
ence, as  is  the  case  in  England,  the   rate  of  increase  very  much 
diminishes.     3.  He  assumes  3  sons  for  a  family,  calculating  from 
the  families  mentioned  in  Exod.  vi.,  and  assuming  that  all  the 
children  are  named,  p.  165;  or,  4 1- sons  for  a  family,  calculating 
from  the  sons  of  Jacob,  p.  163  :  whereas,  if  he  had  taken  a  larger 
basis  for    his    calculations,    namely,   Abraham,   Jokshan,   Dedan, 
Midian,  Ishmael,  Isaac,  Jacob,  Esau,  Eliphaz,  Eeuel,— Gen.  xxv., 
xxxvi.,  &c., — he  would  have  found  an  average  of  5^^  sons  to  a 
family.     4.  He  assumes^  against  all  probability,  that  no  daughters 
were  born  to  all  these  numerous  families,  except  the  two  or  three 
who  are  named,     5.  He  assumes  that  wherever  Moses  gives  names 
in  any  connection,  as  in  genealogies  and  the  like,  lie  gives  all  the 
names.     To  me  nothing  is  more  certain  than  the  contrary.     A 
close  study  of  "  the  generations  "  of  Moses,  beginning  with  Gen.  x., 
would  demonstrate  (I  think)  that  the  writer  was  guided  by  some 
principle  of  selection ;    and  that  he  gives  only  what  I  may  call 
type  names, — that  is,  names  connected  in  some  way  with  that  field 
of  history  which    he    had    in    view.      Abraham,  probably,  had 
sons  (Gen.  xxv.  6)  who  are  casually  alluded  to  but  are  nowhere 
i>amed. 


NUMBER   OF   THE   ISRAELITES.  87 

and  summary  liistoiy,  covering  vast  intervals,  and 
written  for  other  ends  than  to  gratify  curiosity,"''  we  are 
to  suppose  nothing  to  have  been  done  beyond  wliat  the 
writer  may  have  recorded  ;  then,  as  I  have  said  before, 
it  is  not  Moses  only,  but  all  writers  of  any  merit,  that 
will  have  to  be  treated  as  "  unhistorical." 

In  short,  I  have  given  examples  enough  to  show 
that  Bishop  Colenso's  reasoning  depends  entirely  upon 
certain  things  which  he  assumes  ;  that  his  assumptions, 
again,  depend  upon  a  stand-point  of  his  own  ;  that, 
finally,  this  stand-point  is  simply  that  of  the  infidel ; 
namely,  a  determination,  at  all  hazards,  and  in  viola- 
tion of  all  rules  of  generous  interpretation,  to  wrest  the 
letter  of  Scripture  to  the  overthrow  of  its  spirit. 

Having  given  examples  of  this,  I  will  not  follow  the 
subject  into  its  minuter  details :  but  will  now  go  on 
with  the  one  important  question,  to  wit.  How  far  the 
difiiculties  connected  with  Scripture  numbers  aflfect  the 
authority  of  the  sacred  writings,  as  inspired  and  Jih- 
torical. 

*  To  a  Christian  mind,  the  spirit  of  Moses,  as  well  as  "  the 
spirit  of  prophecy,"  is  "  the  testimony  of  Jesus."  That  Divine 
instinct  which  led  the  historian  so  to  select  his  characters  and 
facts,  as  to  present  continually  certain  types  or  foreshadowings  of 
Christ,  is  to  those  who  have  the  eyes  to  see  it  an  irresistible  evi- 
dence of  the  Inspiration  of  the  Scriptures.  Without  studying  this 
feature  of  the  Mosaic  narratives,  their  harmony  and  their  meaning 
are  in  a  great  measure  lost.  And  I  may  say  in  general  that  he 
who  sees  not  Christ  everywhere  in  the  Old  Testament  Writings, 
misses  the  only  proof  of  their  Divine  character  that  can  give  per- 
manent satisfaction.  Not  having  the  true  spiritual  point-of-view, 
he  fails  to  discern  their  spiritual  meaning.  On  the  two  extremes 
of  interpretation,  the  literal  and  the  spiritualistic^  see  Lee  on 
Inspiration,  p.  310,  and  Appendix  G. 


XL 


HOW  THESE  FACTS  AFFECT  THE  BIBLE  AS  INSPHIED 
AND  HISTORICAL. 

If  numerals  were  used  but  vaguely,  in  the  "  old 
time ''  of  tlie  sacred  writers ;  if  they  were  used  in  a 
mystic  way ;  if  they  were  peculiarly  exposed  to  cor- 
ruption, whether  from  accident  or  from  scribes :  if,  in 
short,  the  numerals  of  the  Bible,  from  one  cause  or 
from  many,  are  in  such  a  confused  state  that  we  find 
them  inexplicable  ;  * — then,  How  does  all  this  affect 
the  Bible  as  inspired  and  historical  f 

I.  I  answer,  Not  at  all.  Granting  the  utmost  in 
this  way  that  can  possibly  be  claimed,  it  merely  proves 
that,  out  of  the  great  bulk  of  inspired  language  in 
which  God's  Will  is  conveyed,  there  are  certain  parts 
which  convey  to  us  an  imperfect  or  vague  meaning : 
parts,  which  in  our  present  state  of  knowledge  we  can- 
not satisfactorily  explain. 

As  these  parts  relate,  moreover,  to  the  modern  sci- 
ence of  "  statistics,"  and  are  matters  of  learned  curiosity 

•  *  I  wish  it  to  be  understood,  tliat  I  put  such  admissions  merely 
as  hypotheses :  the  difficulty,  after  all,  is  one  that  yields  easily  to 
a  liberal  and  spiritual  system  of  interpretation. 


HISTORICAL    CHARACTER   OF   THE   PENTATEUCH.  80 

rather  tlian  of  the  Faith,  we  may  not  be  quite  sure  that 
the  key  to  their  interpretation,  in  a  scientific  way,  will 
ever  be  recovered. 

But,  even  so,  the  admission  docs  not  aiiect  the  doc- 
trine of  Inspiration.  In  the  Bible,  as  in  Nature,  there 
is  a  superabounding  wealth  :  an  ample  provision  against 
such  losses  as  may  accidentally  occur.  God  inspired 
men  to  write  with  freedom,  in  the  language  of  their 
own  times.  This  language,  of  course,  may  become  in 
part  obscure,  and  in  part  unintelligible.  The  key  to 
some  of  its  idioms  may  be  lost  irrecoverably.  Yet,  as 
the  part  which  remains  clear  is  still  superabundant ;  as 
it  conveys,  and  more  than  conveys,  the  whole  counsel 
of  God:  the  great  end  of  Lispiration  is  still  most  fully 
answered. 

Moreover,  these  dark  places  of  Scripture  may  have 
been  light  to  former  ages,  whatever  they  may  be  to  us. 
They  were  therefore  not  words  wasted.  And  even  to 
us  they  have  their  uses,  both  as  tokens  of  extreme  an- 
tiquity, and  as  calls  to  the  exercise  of  the  graces  of  the 
131st  Psalm. 

Were  the  Bible  a  clear  book,  from  every  point-of- 
view ;  were  there  no  idioms  in  it  hard  to  be  under- 
stood ;  were  there  no  proofs  of  habits  of  mind,  which 
tax  one's  powers  to  the  utmost  to  conceive  of  and  enter 
into  ;  had  it  none  of  the  mystic  depths  of  the  child-soul 
of  that  old  Semitic  world :  then,  to  my  mind,  at  least, 
it  would  lack  one  of  its  strongest  "  evidences "  ;  it 
would  be  hard  for  me  to  receive  it  as  a  voice  of  the 
"  old  time  "  of  plenary  Inspiration. 

Granting  the  utmost^  then,  with  regard  to  the  diffi- 
culties of  some  places  of  the  Bible,  I  see  in  this  admis- 
sion nothing  that  goes  against  its  claim  to  be  the  sure 


90  HISTORICAL   CHAKACTEK   OF   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

Word  of  God.  The  admission  merely  proves  the  folly 
of  "  private  interpretation."  The  Bible  not  being  the 
mind  of  any  individual,  but  being  (2  Pet.  i.  20,  21)  the 
broad  mind  of  the  Spirit  of  all  Truth,  it  requires  the 
whole  mind  of  the  Church  to  interpret  it  with  author- 
ity. It  needs,  to  make  it  clear,  the  learning*  of  all 
ages.  It  requires,  to  make  it  sure,  the  stability  of  that 
stand-point  which  is  j)rovided  in  the  Church. 

II.  But,  if  such  admissions  are  made  with  regard  to 
the  Pentateuch,  will  it  not  prove,  at  all  events,  that  the 
Pentateuch  is  "  unhistorical  "  ? 

In  speaking  of  the  Pentateuch  as  "  historical,"  there 
are  three  necessary  distinctions  to  be  constantlv  borne 
in  mind.  First^  it  is  ancient  history ;  secondly^  it  is 
sacred  history ;  thirdly^  it  is  a  history  of  snjpernaturcd 
events. 

First :  As  ancient  history,  it  is  not  to  be  judged 
exclusively  by  modern  canons  of  "  the  historical ;  "  for 
the  child-like  mind  of  the  old  world  had  habits  of  its 
own,  and  for  these  peculiar  habits  a  certain  allowance 
must  be  made. 

To  illustrate  my  meaning,  I  will  suppose  the  case  of 
'  two  witnesses  in  court.  The  first  is  a  man  of  exact  and 
cultivated  mind  :  of  a  grammatical,  mathematical,  and 
logical  education.  Being  such,  he  gives  his  evidence  lu- 
cidly, methodically,  with  everything  in  its  due  order  of 
time  and  place  and  logical  connection.  The  second  man, 
equally  honest,  has  no  such  discipline  in  his  thoughts. 
He  tells  his  story  in  bits  and  parcels,  just  as  it  comes 
into  his  mind.  He  is  somewhat  dramatic  in  his  style. 
He  uses  words  in  a  loose  or  idiomatic  way.     He  some- 

*  2  Pet.  ill.  16. 


HISTORICAL   CHAEACTEE   OF   THE   PENTATEUCU.  01 

times  transposes  facts,  putting  them  in  tlie  order  in 
wliicli  they  start  out  from  his  memory,  rather  than  in 
the  order  in  which  they  actually  occur.  In  short,  he 
gives  his  evidence  inartificially,  and  the  necessary  re- 
sult is  somewhat  of  a  medley.  Yet,  to  a  lawyer  of  any 
shrewdness,  this  second  man's  testimony  is  not  the  less 
valuable  on  that  account.  'Nor  is  it  a  whit  the  less 
true.  On  the  contrary,  if  the  object  is  to  elicit  the 
whole  truth,  the  second  man,  it  is  probable,  will  actually 
let  out  more  in  his  artless  and  random  way,  than  the 
utmost  skill  of  the  bench  and  bar  can  extract  from  the 
other  witness. 

IS'ow  modern  history  is  more  methodical  than  the 
ancient ;  it  is  more  philosophical,  as  we  say  :  its  testi- 
mony runs  in  grooves  more  elaborately  laid  out.  An- 
cient history  is,  comparatively,  inartificial  and  discur- 
sive. It  had  to  run,  as  it  could,  without  the  help  of 
grooves.  As  a  natural  consequence,  it  is  oftentimes 
perplexing.  It  puts  facts  out  of  their  place,  and  puz- 
zles the  statistician  with  all  kinds  of  odd  omissions. 
What  is  worse,  it  is  often  couched  in  a  semi-poetic  style, 
the  language  of  nature  not  yet  broken  to  the  yoke  of 
arithmetic.  It  abounds  in  "  winged  words,"  which  till 
the  wings  are  clipped  disturb  the  gravity  of  modern 
critics,  in  a  way  hardly  to  be  endured.  In  short,  like 
Pindar's  poetic  "  bolts,"  it  "  needs  an  interpreter." 
Yet,  no  wise  man  will  contend  that  ancient  history,  on 
the  whole,  has  less  trnth  in  it  than  the  modern.*  It 
may,  of  course,  be  more  difficult  to  ascertain  the  truth : 
but  to  one  who  reads  with  his  mind,  and  not  merely 

*  This  subject  is  admirably  discussed  by  Rawlinson  in  his  In- 
troduction to  Herodotus. 


92  HISTOEICAL   CHARACTER   OF   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

with  his  eyes,  the  elder  chroniclers  are,  after  all,  the 
most  veracious  of  historians. 

Secondly  :  The  Bible  is  sacred  history,  and  therein 
differs  materially  from  that  style,  with  which  the  word 
"  history  "  is  commonly  associated.  A  secular  historian 
gives  events,  partly  in  the  order  of  time  and  place, 
partly  in  that  of  natural  causes  and  effects.  With  him 
man  is  the  chief  actor :  nature  and  natural  motives,  the 
principal  agencies.  But  the  sacred  historian  begins  and 
ends  witii  God.  He  exhibits  God  working  in  terres- 
trial affairs.  Everything  else  is  strictly  subordinate  to 
that.  Matters,  which  from  an  every-day  point-of-view 
are  of  principal  importance,  become  from  this  sacred 
jDoint-of-view  of  secondary  importance.  Hence,  while 
sacred  history  sometimes  deals  in  facts  and  figures  like 
other  histories,  it  naturally  gives  them  with  less  regard 
to  mere  statistical  effect.  It  is,  therefore,  peculiarly 
liable  to  omissions  of  detail.  What  is  not  to  its  purpose 
it  says  nothing  about.  This  feature,  indeed,  is  common 
to  all  history,  and  especially  to  ancient  history.  But  as 
sacred  history  involves,  more  than  any  other,  a  certain 
distinct  object  and  a  singular  point-of-view,  it  will  na- 
turally for  that  reason  be  as  remarkable  for  what  it 
leaves  unsaid,  as  for  what  it  sees  fit  to  mention. 

Thirdly :  The  Bible  is  a  history  of  supernatural 
events.  Its  province,  therefore,  is  peculiar  and  distinct. 
And  as  an  ordinary  historian  touches  lightly  upon  mira- 
cles, because  whether  true  or  not  they  come  hardly 
within  his  line,  so  a  sacred  historian  deals  with  common- 
place events.  So  far  as  he  mentions  them,  he  does  it  for 
the  most  part  lightly  and  summarily.  From  his  point-of- 
view  they  are  mere  matters  of  course.  Hence,  as  even 
ordinary  history  leaves  much  to  the  intelligence  of  the 


HISTORICAL   CHARACTER   OF   THE   1»ENTATEUCII.  93 

reader,  assuming  either  a  knowledge  that  will  6U])ply 
details,  or  at  least  a  liberality  that  will  readily  account 
for  their  omission,  the  same,  to  a  far  greater  extent, 
may  in  the  case  of  sacred  history  be  reasonably  ex- 
pected. 

With  due  regard  to  considerations  of  this  kind,  it 
will  be  seen  that  the  peculiarities  of  Moses  are  not  of  a 
character  to  impair  his  credit  as  a  historian.  At  the 
utmost,  they  show  that  like  the  ancients  generally  he 
was  indiflerent  to  statistics ;  that,  while  he  gave  certain 
facts  and  certain  results,  he  took  no  special  pains  to 
give  all  the  facts  which  were  included  in  his  results ; 
that,  ill  the  use  of  numerals  especially,  he  wrote  on 
some  system,  or  in  some  habit  of  mind,  unintelligible 
to  us ;  that,  in  short,  there  are  "  some  things  "  in  Moses 
"  hard  to  be  understood." 

In  other  words,  we  are  obliged  in  reading  Moses,  as 
in  reading  Herodotus,  to  make  certain  allowances.  For 
example,  when  in  Gen.  iv.  17,  we  read  of  Cain's  wife^ 
we  conclude  that  Adam  had  children  not  mentioned  by 
the  historian  :  and,  having  made  this  natural  inference, 
we  draw  from  it  a  rule  which  we  are  obliged  to  apply 
continually  to  the  whole  narrative  that  follows.  We 
conclude,  in  fact,  that  Moses  leaves  many  things  un- 
said, and  a  still  larger  number  of  things  totally  unac- 
counted for.  But  is  a  feature  of  this  kind  "  unhistor- 
ical "  ?  By  no  means.  A  made  up  story  generally 
shows  that  it  is  made  up,  by  accounting  for  everything. 
If  a  new  character  comes  into  a  novel,  the  novelist  im- 
mediately stops  his  narrative  to  tell  us  who  this  new^ 
character  is.  Fiction,  in  short,  must  be  complete  in  it- 
self, because  its  facts  and  characters  and  events  have 
no  existence  outside  of  itself.     History  is  never  self- 


9i:  HISTORICAL   CHAEACTEE   OF   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

complete.  From  the  great  living  world  of  facts  it  re- 
flects certain  images,  according  to  some  principle  of  se- 
lection, but  there  is  always  an  infinite  number  of  other 
images  toward  which  its  glass  is  not  directed,  and 
which  therefore  it  does  not  reflect. 

Hence  no  particular  history  can  be  read  intelligent- 
ly, in  the  full  sense  of  the  word,  without  either  a 
knowledge  of  all  history,  or  at  least  an  imagination 
which  will  in  some  sort  supply  the  defect. 

But  this  faculty  of  imagination  has  no  place  in  the 
cyphering  school  of  such  critics  as  Bishop  Colenso.  It 
suggests  hypotheses.  It  hints  at  the  possibility  of 
data  other  than  those  which  are  set  down  on  the  critic's 
slate.  It  spoils  the  sum.  Like  a  mischievous  boy, 
therefore,  it  is  turned  out  of  school :  and  Faith,  unfortu- 
nately, is  turned  out  with  it. 

To  come  back,  then,  to  the  lowest  and  most  matter- 
of-fact  view :  Bishop  Colenso  finds  in  Moses  some 
twenty  supposed  difficulties,  arising  either  from  appa- 
rent contradictions,  or  from  things  improbable  in  them- 
selves. Of  these,  one  or  two  are  scientiJiG :  bnt  he 
does  not  dwell  on  them  ;  he  is  content  to  hint  at  them 
occasionally,  in  order  to  give  weight  to  his  other 
charges.  Two  are  inoral  difficulties :  to  wit,  a  differ- 
ence of  opinion  between  Moses  and  the  Bishop  on  the 
lawfulness  of  slavery.  Some  seven  or  eight  are  merely 
'verhal^  founded  on  perversions  of  well  known  idioms, 
Wiiich  the  Bishop  construes  on  principles  that  would 
turn  all  language  into  nonsense.  The  rest  are  cyphered 
out  by  arithmetical  calculations,  the  basis  of  each  sum 
being  the  utterly  unwarrantable  assumption,  that  the 
details  furnished  by  a  historian  must  be  sufficient  to 
prove  his  general  summaries  of  results.     Among  all 


HISTOKICAL   CHARACTER   OF   THE    PENTATEUCH.  95 

these,  tliere  is  one  which  enters  as  an  element  also  into 
most  of  the  others,  namely,  that  which  is  connected 
with  the  ancient  names  or  signs  of  number.  But  does 
not  this  difficulty  pertain  to  all  ancient  history  ?  '^'  Kot 
to  go  back  at  all  to  the  contemporaries  of  Moses ;  to 
say  nothing  of  the  round  numbers  of  the  Egyptians, 
or  Hindoos  or  Chinese  ;  but  to  come  down  to  as  late  a 
day  as  the  times  of  the  first  Emperors :  Who  can  tell 
us,  witJmi  a  million,  the  population  of  Rome  ?  Some 
put  it  as  low  as  one  million.  Others  have  raised  the 
estimate  to  nearly  seven  millions.  And  if  most  men  now 
incline  to  adopt  the  lower  figure,  it  is  rather  from  the 
analogy  of  the  census  of  modern  cities,  than  from  any 
reliable  data  furnished  us  by  the  ancients. 

The  ancients,  in  fact,  knew  nothing  of  statistics,  on 
any  large  scale.  Their  histories,  therefore,  are  unre- 
liable on  that  point.  But  do  we  conclude,  for  such  rea- 
sons, that  ancient  histories  are  "  unhistorical  ?  "  Or,  if 
we  do  not,  why  should  we  condemn  Moses  ? 

I  might  go  on  now  to  speak  of  that  higher  ground, 
and  more  spiritual  point-of-view,  from  which  .  the  early 
Fathers  viewed  the  subject  of  Scripture  numbers.  But 
it  would  lead  me  too  far  into  an  abstract  and  intricate 
discussion.  I  pass  it  by,  therefore  :  and  conclude  with 
a  few  remarks  on  the  great  and  crowning  fallacy  of  the 
Skeptics  in  general. 

*  The  data  of  Herodotus,  as  well  as  his  sum-total,  would  make 
the  army  of  Xerxes  more  than  5,000,000  men:  Grote's  Hist,  of 
Greece,  Vol.  V.    See  Appendix  B. 


XII. 

CONCLUDINa  REI^IARKS :   THE   CROWNING  FALLACY. 

The  assailant  of  tlie  Bible  has,  in  one  particular,  a 
very  easy  task.  In  a  question  which,  like  all  others, 
has  two  sides  to  it,  he  feels  himself  obliged  to  look  to 
one  side  only. 

This  would  not  be  the  case  with  a  Skeptic,  were  he 
really  a  Skeptic  in  the  old  sense  of  the  word  :  were  he 
really  one  who  is  looking  or  inquiring  for  the  Truth. 
Such  a  one,  of  course,  knowing  that  rational  conviction 
must  result  from  the  balance  of  probabilities,  would  be 
anxious  to  weigh  well  the  reasons  on  both  sides :  and  he 
would  allow  no  force  to  arguments  against  a  received 
opinion,  unless  he  had  compared  them  with  the  reasons 
in  its  favor,  and  carefully  struck  a  balance  between  the 
two. 

But  Bishop  Colenso  is  not  a  Skeptic  of  this  kind. 
He  comes  out  simply  as  an  assailant  of  the  Bible,  and 
feels  no  responsibility  as  to  what  may  be  said  in  its 
defence.  His  is  the  easy  work  of  marshalling  "  diffi- 
culties." He  loves  the  cheap  triumph  of  drawing  up 
his  forces  where  there  is  nothing  to  oppose  them.  In 
the  course  of  his  discussion,  he  manages  to  bring  out 
some  twenty  supposed  marks  of  the  "  unhistorical " 
character  of  the  Books  of  Moses  :  but  of  the  hundreds 


coNCLrsioN.  97 

which  have  been  brought  to  prove  the  contrary,  he 
lisps  not  a  syllable.  He  thus  creates  an  illusion  which 
is  vastly  in  his  favor.  When  only  a  few  points  are 
discussed,  it  looks  as  if  the  controversy  turned  solely 
upon  them.  The  reader  easily  falls  into  the  error,  that 
the  battle  is  between  certain  "  difficulties  "  on  the  one 
side,  and  on  the  other  certain  efforts  of  commentators 
to  remove  or  reconcile  them  :  whereas,  in  fact,  the 
difficult  passages  in  Scripture,  even  if  they  were  all 
what  the  critic  tries  to  prove  them,  are  still  immensely 
overmatched  by  a  host  of  passages  which  are  not  diffi- 
cult ;  which  testify  most  plainly  and  unequivocally  to 
the  truth  and  historical  character  of  the  sacred  narra- 
tives. 

The  fallacy  has  been  exposed  so  often,  and  so  ably, 
that  it  will  be  enough,  in  this  Tract,  to  call  attention 
to  it.  If  any  one  desires  to  see  the  best  expose  of  it, 
let  him  read  that  wise  and  witty  essay  of  Archbishop 
Whately,*  entitled  "  Historic  Doubts  with  regard  to 
the  Emperor  J^apoleon."  He  will  there  see  how  easy 
it  is  to  disprove  anything,  by  simply  ignoring  the  fact 
that  a  question  has  two  sides. 

The  great  controversy  in  Germany,  relative  to  the 
existence  of  a  certain  character  known  as  Homer,  was 
an  example  of  the  same  fallacy  more  seriously  carried 
out.  A  person  of  the  name  of  Wolf,  if  Wolf  was  a 
person — for  when  we  speak  of  these  learned  Germans, 
we  ought  not  to  be  too  certain  of  anything  we  say : — this 
person,  or  "  cycle  "  of  persons,  that  goes  by  the  name  of 
Wolf — a  name  that  seems  too  mythic  to  be  considered 

*  There  are  others  of  the  Archbishop's  works  which  exhibit 
the  same  fallacy,  in  a  more  serious  wa^, 

5 


98  CONCLUSION. 

"  historical :  " — this  person,  or  myth,  or  lupine  cycle,  or 
whatever  he  may  have  been,  undertook  to  prove  that 
the  Iliad  was  not  the  work  of  one  poet — for  what  poet 
ever  composed  an  epic  equal  to  that  ? — but  was  a  kind 
of  joint-stock  concern,  the  result  of  the  accumulated 
labors  of  a  sort  of  poetic  guild  or  firm,  which  flourished 
for  sundry  ages  under  the  sunny  skies  of  Greece.  The 
notion  was  a  new  one,  and  the  proof  of  it  was  easy. 
Fick  out  from  Homer  everything  that  looks  as  if  it 
might  have  been  said  by  somebody  else  ;  catch  Homer 
nodding  wherever  he  seems  to  wink  ;  cull  the  interpo- 
lated verses  of  which  there  are  not  a  few  ;  expose  the 
actual  contradictions,  and  add  on  a  few  imaginary  ones  ; 
find  words  here  or  there  which  look  too  new  for 
Homer's  age  :  in  short,  bring  all  the  proof  you  can  on 
one  side  of  the  question,  and  make  it  appear  as  if  that 
were  the  only  side  :  and  your  work,  you  may  be  sure, 
is  satisfactorily  accomplished. 

Of  course,  with  ancient  personages  like  Homer  or 
Herodotus  or  Moses,  the  task  is  much  more  easy,  than 
when  a  Napoleon  Bonaparte  is  taken  in  hand. 

Bishop  Colenso's  effort  is  entirely  of  this  cheap  and 
easy  character.  It  is  not  an  inquiry  into  the  claims  of 
the  Pentateuch.  That  would  imply  some  examination 
of  the  claims.  But  the  Bishop  hardly  so  much  as  hints 
that  any  claims  of  the  kind  exist.  Nor  is  it  -an  attempt 
to  disprove  the  arguments  which  have  been  framed 
upon  a  critical  examination  of  the  whole  text  of  the 
Pentateuch.  That  would  involve  some  mention  of 
those  arguments.  The  Bishop  encumbers  himself  with 
nothing  of  the  sort.  His  aim  is  not  to  find  the  armor- 
of-proof  in  which  the  Bible  is  encased,  but  simply  to 
find,  if  he  can,  some  hole  in  the  armor. 


CONCLUSION.  99 

For  this  reason  I  have  felt  no  scrnple  about  dealing 
with  the  Bishop,  as  really  an  Infidel  and  an  enemy  of 
Christianity. 

And  if  I  had  any  scruples  on  the  subject,  they 
would  be  eflectually  removed  by  that  shameless  avowal 
of  pure  heathenism,  with  which,  in  his  Concluding 
Kemarks,  p.  222-226,  he  sums  up  his  estimate  of  the 
Insph-ation  of  the  Bible.  So  far  as  the  Bible  utters  a 
certain  class  of  utterances,  which  "  when  once  per- 
ceived by  the  spirit's  eyes,  are  recognized  at  once  as 
truths,"  he  grants  it  to  be  in  some  sense  inspired.  But 
then,  there  is  a  like  inspiration  all  through  the  world. 
Consequently,  we  must  "  recognize  the  voice  of  God's 
Spirit,  in  whatever  way,  by  whatever  ministry,  He 
vouchsafes  to  speak  to  the  children  of  men."  Where- 
upon he  gives  us,  as  "  living  truths  ....  learned  by 
the  direct  teaching  of  the  Spirit  of  God,"  some  three 
pages  of  Mohammedan  and  Hindoo  aphorisms. 

A  Christian  man  may  admire  what  is  good  in  Hin- 
dooism,  as  cordially  and  as  frankly  as  Bishop  Colenso 
does.  He  may  firmly  believe  also,  that  whatever  light 
there  is  amid  the  darkness  of  Heathendom,  comes 
undoubtedly  from  the  Father  of  Lights.  But  his  con- 
viction is  none  the  less  sure  that  the  only  "  true  Light," 
"  the  Light  of  men,"  is  He,  the  everlasting  Word,  who 
was  manifested,  and  "  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among 
us  ...  .  full  of  grace  and  truth."  Without  belief  in 
a  historic  Christ,  no  man  can  be  called  in  any  sense  a 
Christian.  And  no  man  can  believe  in  Christ,  as  an 
historic  Personage,  without  faith  in  Moses  and  the 
Prophets  who  were  inspired  by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  bear 
testimony  of  Him. 

This  Divine  Word  Incarnate,  this  manifested  Truth, 


100  CONCLUSION. 

this  Emmanuel,  God  with  us,  Bishop  Colenso  has  aban- 
doned, or  what  amounts  to  the  same  thing,  is  ready  to 
abandon.  And  all  for  what  ?  He  solemnly  assures  us 
that  it  is  all  for  the  sake  of  "  truth."  But  what  truth 
has  he  found  ?  "What  precious  discovery  does  he  offer 
us,  to  supply  the  place  of  that  inheritance  which  he 
would  fain  take  aw^ay  ?  A  few  fatalistic  maxims, 
Mohammedan  or  Hindoo,  the  feeble  common-places  of 
natural  theology,  words  true  in  a  certain  sense,  but 
without  power,  without  grace,  without  life,  the  mere 
roundings  as  it  were  of  Ciceronian  periods,  the  thin 
veil  of  a  religion  without  faith,  without  hope,  without 
God  in  the  world.  Is  this  a  fair  equivalent  for  that 
Gospel,  which  is  not  in  word  only,  but  in  power  ? 

I  can  only  say,  God  have  mercy  on  the  soul  which 
can  imagine  it  an  equivalent :  which  can  see  no  differ- 
ence between  the  Day-Star  of  Christianity,  and  the 
vague  and  feeble  lights  which  reveal,  but  do  not  illu- 
mine, the  darkness  of  Heathendom  ! 


APPENDIX   A. 

NUMBER    OF    THE    FIRST-BORN,    &o. 
{See  p.  11.) 

The  best  way  (perhaps)  of  reconciling  tlie  number  of  the 
"first-born"  with  that  of  the  male  adults  is  suggested  by  the 
fact,  that  the  total  number  of  Levites  was  22,300 — as  the 
reader  will  see  by  adding  up  the  partial  estimates  in  Num.  iii, 
22,  28,  34 — whereas  only  22,000  were  available  as  substitutes 
for  the  first-born.  "What  became,  then,  of  the  300  ?  It  is  an- 
swered, that  they  were  the  first-born  of  the  Levites,  and  conse- 
quently could  only  redeem  themselves,  and  not  their  brethren. 
If  so,  the  first-born  of  the  Levites  (born  since  the  Passover) 
would  be  in  the  proportion  of  300  to  22,000,  or  of  1  to  74  of 
the  males  "from  a  month  old  and  upward":  Num.  iii.  15. 
Now,  supposing  that  the  first-born  of  the  other  tribes  meant 
only  those  who  had  been  born  since  the  Laio  of  Redemption 
had  been  instituted,  we  may  make  the  following  calculation : 
600,000  fighting  men  would  be  about  ^  or  -i-  of  the  male  popu- 
lation of  all  ages :  if  we  allow  ^,  the  total  number  would  be 
1,200,000  ;  if  we  allow  i  it  would  be  1,800,000.  Divide 
these  sums  respectively  by  22,000,  the  number  of  first-born, 
and  we  get  the  rate  of  1  to  55  in  the  one  case,  and  1  to  81  in 
the  other :  or,  if  we  take  the  warriors  to  be  (as  is  probable) 
something  more  than  i  and  less  than  ^  of  the  whole  number 
of  males,  we  get  a  close  approximation  to  the  1  in  74  which 


102  APPENDIX. 

has  been  previously  calculated  as  the  proportion  of  first-born 
among  the  Levites. 

From  this  coincidence  arises  a  probability,  that  the  first- 
born in  Num.  iii.  43,  were  only  those  who  had  been  born  since 
the  Law  of  Redemption  had  been  given ;  and  that  said  Law 
was  not  intended  to  have  a  retrospective  force. 

These  hypotheses — "^^lich  are  certainly  not  more  violent 
than  the  assumptions  of  Bishop  Colenso — would  put  the  22,000 
first-born  and  the  600,000  warriors  in  a  fairer  proportion  to  one 
another  ;  and  so  far  would  relieve  the  chief  difficulty:  see  Poole's 
Synopsis^  in  Num.  iii.  39. 

Even  if  we  take  the  higher  of  the  two  rates  above  men- 
tioned, and  suppose  the  warriors  to  be  g-  the  male  population, 
the  proportion  of  the  first-born,  namely  1  to  55,  would  be 
greater  than  the  1  to  74  of  the  Levites ;  but  the  difference 
might  be  accounted  for  by  the  probable  supposition,  that  the 
Levites  being  more  restricted  in  marriage  than  the  other  tribes, 
there  would  consequently  have  been  fewer  births  among  them. 

The  chief  difficulty  in  the  way  of  such  hypotheses  is  that 
the  22,273  in  Num.  iii.  43,  are  described  as  "a?Z  the  first-born 
males,  &c."  But  the  whole  analogy  of  Scripture  language 
shows,  that  the  word  "  all "  has  no  absolute  force,  but  is  to  be 
taken  always  in  reference  to  the  general  scope  of  the  context 
in  which  it  is  used.  "  All  the  first-born  males,"  in  this  in- 
stance, means  all  who  came  under  the  Law  of  Redemption :  and 
it  is  probable  enough,  that  none  came  under  it  but  those  who 
had  been  "  born  "  under  it — namely,  those  who  had  been  born 
since  the  Passover. 

Considerations  of  this  kind  would  enable  us  to  get  rid  of 
the  seeming  discrepancy  in  the  numbers  used  by  Moses. 

The  other  instances  of  discrepancy,  cited  by  Bishop  Colenso, 
are  easily  enough  accounted  for,  on  general  principles.  For 
example,  the  census  referred  to  in  Exod.  xxxviii.  26,  exactly 
tallies  with  the  census  taken  6  months  after  in  Num.  i.  The 
Bishop  asks.  How  could  this  be  ?     "Was  there  no  increase  of 


APPENDIX.  103 

population  the  meanwhile  ?  I  answer,  The  returns  of  the 
second  census  being  made  by  the  "heads  of  thousands"  (i.  16), 
with  a  view  to  the  military  enrolment  (chap,  ii.),  there  would 
be  no  need  of  a  fresh  coimt :  the  numbering  that  liad  taken 
place  6  months  before  would  be  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  veriest 
Martinet.  But  why  take  a  fresh  census  at  all  ?  "Why  could 
not  Moses  be  content  with  the  returns  of  the  former  number- 
ing ?  I  answer,  The  former  returns  were  made  in  connection 
with  the  tribute  of  bekahs,  and  were  therefore  made  probably 
by  tribes.  Moses  wished  a  new  return  made  (Num.  i.  3)  ''by 
armies":  i.  e.  by  such  military  divisions,  thousands^  hundreds, 
fifties^  tens,  as  were  in  vogue  among  them.  Tiiis  would  re- 
quire not  a  new  numbering  of  the  people,  but  merely  a  new 
arrangement  of  the  census  previously  taken. 

The  diminished  number  of  the  last  census  taken.  Num. 
xxvi.  51,  is  amply  accounted  for  by  the  great  number  who  had 
fallen  in  the  wilderness. 

On  the  whole,  the  difficulty  arising  from  the  seeming  dis- 
crepancies of  the  numbers  in  the  Pentateuch  disappear  before 
a  fair  and  liberal  interpretation. 

But  in  proportion  as  the  discrepancies  are  removed,  the 
claims  of  the  higher  numbers  seem  to  be  strengthened ;  and 
the  considerations  which  I  have  urged  in  the  text,  with  a  view 
to  a  possible  reduction  of  them,  appear  in  the  same  ratio  to  lose 
their  force. 

As  to  that,  I  am  not  at  all  solicitous :  for  the  Israelites, 
whatever  their  number  may  have  been,  were  sustained  in  the 
wilderness  by  miraculous  power ;  and  a  great  miracle  is  to  my 
mind  as  easy  as  a  small  one.  If  God  could  send  manna  and 
quails  for  10,000  people,  He  could  just  as  easily  provide  the 
same  food  for  10,000,000.  And  if  He  could  provide  for  the 
people.  He  could  as  easily  provide  for  the  cattle.  A  super- 
natural act  implies  an  absolute  power  to  perform  all  that  is 
necessary  for  the  completeness  of  that  act.  If  the  sun  stood 
still  at  Joshua's  command,  the  same  Power  which  arrested  the 


104:  APPENDIX. 

earth's  motion — or  did  anything  else  that  might  be  needed  to 
keep  the  sun  from  going  down — would  prevent  any  damage 
that  might  ensue  from  such  an  arrest.  So  far  as  natural  laws 
go,  they  are  as  powerful  to  keep  a  dead  body  in  the  grave,  as 
to  keep  the  planets  in  their  spheres.  A-nd  on  the  same  prin- 
ciple, so  far  as  the  Divine  Power  manifests  itself,  it  is  as  mighty 
to  reverse  the  main-wheel  of  the  world  as  it  is  to  call  forth  a 
Lazarus  from  the  tomb. 

I  do  not  incline  to  the  lower  numbers,  therefore,  for  any 
supposed  difficulty  about  sustaining  so  great  a  multitude  of  peo- 
ple. The  whole  Pentateuch  puts  this  on  the  ground  of  miracle. 
My  main  reason  for  admitting  the  possibility  of  a  smaller  esti- 
mate is,  that  the  whole  subject  of  ancient  numbers,  and  of 
Scripture  interpretation  as  connected  with  them,  is  extremely 
intricate  and  perplexed.  It  is  one  that  involves  much  more 
than  the  text  of  Moses.  Moreover,  it  is  one  which  interpreters 
(so  far  as  I  can  find)  have  not  studied  as  thoroughly  and  sys- 
tematically as  its  importance  demands.  In  fact,  Bible  arith- 
metic is  somewhat  of  a  new  science.  It  is  well,  therefore,  not 
to  commit  one's  self  to  any  theory  on  the  subject,  until  all  that 
bears  upon  it  has  been  subjected  to  that  kind  of  analysis  in 
which  the  modern  mind  excels ;  and  which  is  never  honestly 
applied,  either  to  Scripture  or  to  Nature,  without  yielding  good 
fruit  in  the  end. 

Lee,  in  the  Eighth  Lecture  of  his  learned  work  on  Inspira- 
tion, gives  some  striking  instances  to  show  that  such  analysis 
of  the  difficulties  of  Scripture  never  fails,  in  the  long  run,  to 
bring  out  something  wliereby  the  consistency  of  the  Divine 
Word  is  more  fully  proved. 

In  short,  I  do  not  offer  any  solution  of  the  difficulties  con- 
nected with  numbers  :  I  merely  Avish  to  show  that  the  question 
is  too  difficult  to  be  dealt  with  in  any  such  summary  fashion  as 
that  of  Bishop  Colenso.  If  interpretation  is  a  science^  requir- 
ing both  tact  and  learning,  there  is  no  branch  of  it  that  requires 
BO  much  of  both  as  that  of  Scriptural  numeration. 


APPENDIX.  105 

APPEKDIX   B. 

NUMBERS    IN    HERODOTUS. 
{See  p.  95.)      - 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  the  historian  ever  took  more 
pains  to  ascertain  and  record  the  truth,  than  when  he  compiled 
the  hst  of  Xerxes's  army.  He  not  only  gives  the  number  of 
each  contingent,  with  particular  accounts  of  the  nation  from 
which  it  came,  but  for  once  in  his  life  adds  up  the  whole  cor- 
rectly, to  the  enormous  sum  total  of  5,283,320.  As  a  general 
rule,  the  arithmetic  of  Herodotus  is  very  loose.  "If  both  the 
items  and  the  total  of  a  sum  are  mentioned,  they  are  rather 
more  likely  to  disagree  than  to  agree ;  .  .  .  .  either  he  was 
not  an  adept  in  arithmetic,  or  he  did  not  take  the  trouble  to  go 
through  the  calculations,  and  see  that  his  statements  tallied " : 
Ravdinson's  Herod.,  vol.  i.  p.  84.  But  the  account  of  the  host 
of  Xerxes  exhibits  the  utmost  care  in  this  respect. 

Rawlinson,  upon  a  careful  examination  of  the  items,  and 
after  a  heavy  reduction  of  those  numbers  which  Herodotus  had 
estimated  or  conjectured^  manages  to  bring  the  total  down  to 
1,531,610  :  vol.  iii.  p.  129. 

Considering  the  immense  difficulty  of  bringing  together, 
moving  and  feeding,  large  bodies  of  men,  even  with  the  strict 
discipline  and  great  facilities  of  modern  times,  Rawlinson's  re- 
duced estimate  seems  a  little  less  impossible,  but  hardly  more 
probable,  than  that  of  Herodotus.  Napoleon,  the  greatest 
military  genius  of  modern  times,  fairly  broke  down  in  the 
attempt  to  move  an  army  of  500,000.  Xerxes  was  no  genius; 
and  his  forces  were  a  conglomeration  of  the  mobs  of  all  na- 
tions, a  Babel  of  diverse  tongues,  utterly  unaccustomed  to  act 
together  on  any  large  scale.  How  such  a  host,  wielded  by 
such  a  man,  could  have  been  kept  together  for  a  month,  is  ex- 
5* 


106  APPENDIX. 

tremely  difficult  to  imagine.  What  is  worse,  I  can  see  no 
practical  diminution  of  the  difficulty,  unless  one  should  boldly 
cut  down  the  estimate  to  less  than  one-third  of  Rawlinson's,  or 
one-tenth  of  that  which  Herodotus  gives.  An  army  of  half  a 
million  would  be  such  as  a  commander  like  Xerxes  might  keep 
for  some  time  in  a  state  of  retarded  dissolution,  but  for  any 
other  purpose  it  would  be  quite  unmanageable. 

Yet,  of  the  honesty  and  good  faith  of  Herodotus  I  have  no 
doubt  whatever.  The  enormous  exaggeration  was  due,  in  all 
probability,  to  the  loose  way  of  counting  that  prevailed  every- 
where, and  especially  in  the  East.  When  men  got  beyond 
hundreds,  imagination  took  the  slate,  and  the  cyphering  went 
on  by  leaps  into  thousands  and  myriads,  with  Httle  or  no  check 
from  sober  reason.  The  round  numbers,  in  short,  were  used  so 
much  as  figures  of  speech,  that  their  mathematical  import  was 
almost  forgotten. 


APPEISTDIX   C. 

PARALLELISM    IN    NUMBERS. 

In  Browne's  "Introduction"  to  his  Ordo  Scedorum^  the 
"parallelisms"  of  Bible  Chronology  are  pointed  out ;  and  it  is 
shown  that  while  a  design  is  apparent,  the  design  is  such  as 
cannot  be  accounted  for  by  any  theory  of  human  contrivance. 
Thus,  we  have  :  40  years  in  the  wilderness  followed  by  450 
years  of  Judges,  in  all  490  years ;  40  years  from  Samuel  the 
first  of  the  Prophets,  with  450  years  of  kings,  in  all  490  years; 
the  70  years  of  captivity,  in  which  "  the  land  kept  her  Sab- 
baths ; "  then  the  seventy  times  seven  years  of  Daniel,  490 
years.  Again,  the  length  of  the  Mosaic  Period  is  1655  years ; 
the  sum  of  the  antediluvian  genealogies  is  1655  years  ;  from  the 
time  that  Noah  entered  the  Ark  to  the  promise  given  to  Abra- 
ham is  430  years ;  from  the  promise  to  the  Exodus  is  430 
years:  or,  from  the  Creation  to  the  Promise  is  2085  years; 


APPENDIX.  107 

from  the  Promise  to  the  end  of  the  Mosaic  Dispensation  is 
2085  years.  Upon  these  and  similar  coincidences  Browne 
remarks  :  "  Tlie  notion  of  human  contrivance  being  excluded, 
is  it  presumptuous  to  surmise  that  this  is  the  Lord's  doing,  a 
portion  of  His  ways,  who  doeth  all  in  number,  weight  and 
measure,"  &c.  ?  His  reasoning  on  this  subject  is  well  worth 
considering,  and  is  capable  of  a  broader  application  than  that 
which  he  gives.  On  the  mystic  use  of  numbers,  the  following 
from  Joh.  Picus  Mirandula,  quoted  in  the  Bihliotheca  Bihlica^ 
vol.  iv.  p.  9,  may  be  interesting  to  the  reader.  "  Besides  our 
new  method  of  philosophizing  by  numbers" — I  translate  freely 
— "  there  is  an  ancient  way,  followed  by  the  early  Divines,  and 
more  especially  by  Pythagoras,  ...  by  Plato  and  the  elder 
Platonists.  At  present,  however,  like  other  good  things,  it  has 
so  fallen  into  disuse  throus-h  the  neo-ho-ence  of  moderns,  that 
hardly  any  traces  of  it  can  be  found.  Says  Plato  in  the  Epi- 
menides,  Among  all  the  liberal  arts  and  theoretic  sciences,  the 
principal  and  most  Divine  is  the  science  of  numbers.  So 
again,  when  asked,  "Why  is  man  the  wisest  of  living  things? 
he  answers.  Because  he  is  acquainted  with  numbers.  ...  So 
also  Abunasar  declares,  that  he  knows  everything  who  knows 
the  science  of  numbers.  But  by  this  is  not  to  be  understood 
that  kind  of  arithmetic  in  which  men  of  business  are  skilled  : 
for  Plato  expressly  warns  us,  that  this  Divine  Arithmetic  is  not 
at  all  the  same  as  the  arithmetic  of  commerce,"  &;c.  &;c. 


108  APPENDIX. 

APPENDIX  D. 

GENEALOGIES    OF    THE    SCRIPTURES. 

The  Genealogies  of  Scripture  are  particularly  open  to  the 
captious  criticism  of  such  writers  as  Bishop  Colenso  :  partly  be- 
cause they  are  constructed,  as  is  obvious  to  the  most  cursory 
readei-,  on  some  principle  of  selection^  and  partly  because  names, 
like  numbers,  are  peculiarly  liable  to  corruption.  Thus,  if  we 
suppose  Moses,  in  Exod.  vi.  16-25,  to  have  given  a  complete 
list  of  the  family  of  Levi,  the  large  numbers  assigned  to  that 
tribe  in  Num.  iii.  17-39  seem  as  incredible  as  the  Bishop  rep- 
resents  them :    Chap,  XVIII.     But  the  list  is  evidently  not 

complete.     "  These  be  the  heads  of  their  fathers'  houses 

according  to  their  families.  .  .  .  These  are  the  families  accord- 
ing to  their  generations.  .  .  .  These  the  heads  of  the  fathers  of 
the  Levites,  according  to  their  families"  :  Exod.  vi.  14-25.  All 
which  expressions  plainly  imply  that  Moses  gives  only  certain 
prominent  representative  names  :  a  thing  so  common  in  Scrip- 
ture genealogies,  that  we  may  doubt  whether  in  any  case  an 
entire  family  list  is  recorded.  The  very  small  proportion  of 
luomcji,  in  all  these  lists,  would  suggest  at  once  that  a  large 
number  of  names  is  omitted.  Thus,  among  all  the  descendants 
of  Esau,  Gen.  xxxvi.,  I  find  but  one  daughter,  ver.  26.  So,  in 
Gen.  xlvi.,  there  are  but  two  daughters.  In  the  former  case 
there  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  the  07ie  daughter  men- 
tioned was  recorded  for  some  special  reason,  and  that  there 
were  plenty  of  others  not  thus  honored.  In  the  latter  instance, 
tlie  two  daughters  may  have  been  all  that  were  born  to  Jacob 
and  his  sons  ;  and  the  phrase,  "  all  the  souls  of  his  sons  and 
daughters  (were)  "  so  and  so,  looks  as  if  it  were  meant  to  in- 
clude all.  Yet  it  does  not  say  they  "  ivere  "  all :  the  verb  is 
not  in  the  original ;  and  the  sentence  in  which  it  occurs  is 
manifestly  a  mere  summing  up  of  names  actually  given,  and  has 


APPENDIX.  100 

no  force  beyond:  Gen.  xlvi,  15,  18,  26,  27.  So,  among  the 
hundreds  of  sons  named  in  1  Chron.  vi.-ix.,  there  are  not  more 
than  ten  daughters  mentioned. 

Again,  among  all  the  names  and  genealogies  in  the  first 
eleven  chapters  of  Genesis,  there  are  but  five  names  of  women. 
It  is  perfectly  evident,  therefore,  that  with  regard  to  one  sex 
at  least  the  genealogies  deal  only  in  representative  names. 

The  variations  that  exist  among  the  genealogies  show  that 
the  same  applies  also  to  the  other  sex :  names  being  found  in 
one  genealogy  Avhich  are  not  given  in  others.  Thus  St.  Mat- 
thew's genealogy  of  our  Lord  omits  several  names,  which  the  Old 
Testament  enables  us  to  supply  :   see  Newcome's  Harmony. 

We  have  a  perfect  right,  therefore,  to  conclude  that,  when 
Moses  mentions  certain  persons  as  "  heads  of  the  fathers  of  the 
Levites,"  or  uses  other  like  expressions,  he  is  giving  us  only 
the  prominent,  historical,  representative  names.  To  give  more 
in  any  history,  sacred  or  profane,  would  be  a  useless  labor.  It  is 
still  more  idle  to  attempt,  as  Bishop  Colenso  does,  to  calculate 
from  the  names  given  the  populousness  of  the  tribes  or  families 
that  they  represent.  The  fathers,  "  heads  of  fathers,"  or  chief 
fathers  of  nations,  who  find  a  place  in  history  are  very  few  in* 
deed,  compared  with  the  number  of  actual  progenitors. 


AFPEiN^DIX    E. 

THE    GENEALOGY    OF    JOSHUA. 

The  genealogy  of  Joshua,  1  Chron.  vii.  20-27,  might  seem 
at  first  sight  to  involve  the  stupidities  and  absurdities  which 
Bishop  Colenso  attempts  to  draw  out  from  it ;  p.  158 :  namely, 
'•'■  that  Ephraim  himself,  after  the  slaughter  by  the  men  of  Gath 
of  his  descendants  in  the  seventh  generation,  '  mourned  many 
days,'  and  then  married  again,  and  had  a  son,  Beriah,  who  was 
the  ancestor  of  Joshua;"  or  that  "  Joshua  will  be  made  a 
descendant  in  the  seveniecnfh  generation  from  Joseph,  to  asso- 
ciate with  Eleazar  in  the  fourth  generation  from  Levi." 


110  APPENDIX. 

A  critic  of  any  modesty  at  all,  would  pause  a  moment  be- 
fore charging  an  ancient  writer  with  such  stupidity,  lest  per- 
chance the  absurdity  should  come  home  to  roost  in  his  own  in- 
terpretation, and  put  the  fool's  cap  upon  his  own  head. 

And  a  moment's  pause  would  be  sufficient  to  show  that 
Bishop  Colenso's  interpretation  has  not  even  the  poor  excuse  of 
adhering  to  the  bare  letter.  He  has  not  only  failed  to  read  with 
his  mind,  but  even  his  eyes,  in  this  instance,  have  failed  to 
serve  him.  Ephraim's  family  list,  as  is  common  enough  in 
Scripture,  contains  several  genealogies  alongside  of  one  another. 
It  begins  with  Shuthelah,  the  first-born,  and  then  goes  on  with 
^^  his  son,"  and  ^' his  son,"  and  so  on  for  six  generations:  it 
then  comes  back  to  the  second  and  third  sons  of  Ephraim, 
"  Uzer  and  Uleacl^  whom  the  men  of  Gath  slew  because  they 
came  down  to  take  their  cattle  :  "  it  then  relates  the  birth  of  a 
fourth  son  of  Ephraim,  Beriah,  and  proceeds  with  "  his  son,"  and 
so  on :  finally,  as  Browne  ingeniously  shows  in  his  Ordo  ScbcI- 
orum,  it  gives  (by  a  sudden  and  somewhat  obscure  transition) 
a  fifth  son  of  Ephraim,  Edan  or  Eran,  and  comes  to  Joshua  in 
the  fourth  generation  from  him  :  so  that,  really,  Joshua  stands 
in  the  fifth  generation  from  Ephraim.  This  the  reader  will 
readily  perceive,  if  he  will  observe  that  the  sons  of  Ephraim  are 
connected  by  the  copulative  "  and,"  or  something  equivalent, 
while  the  grandsons  and  other  lineal  descendants  are  distin- 
guished by  the  phrase  "  and  his  son."  I  will  give  the  whole 
passage,  so  arranging  it  as  to  make  the  transitions  from  sons 
to  descendants,  or  the  reverse,  more  obvious  to  the  eye. 

"  And  the  sons  of  Ephraim  : 
"  Shuihelah  ; — 

and  Bered  his  son, 

and  Tahath  his  son, 

and  Eladah  his  sou, 

and  Tahath  his  son, 

and  Zabad  his  son, 

and  Shuthelah  his  son :— - 


APPENDIX.  Ill 

"  and  Ezer  and  Elead,  whom  the  men  of  Gath  tliat  were  born 
in  that  land  slew,  because  they  came  down  to  take  away  their 
cattle.  And  Ephraim  their  father  mourned  many  days,  and 
his  brethren  came  to  comfort  him.  And  when  he  went  in  to  his 
wife,  she  conceived  and  bare  a  son,  and  he  called  his  name 
Beriah :  because  it  went  evil  with  his  house.  (And  his 
daughter  was  Sherau,  who  built  Beth-horon  the  nether,  and  the 
upper,  and  Uzzen-sherah.) 

"  And  Rephah  was  his  son,  also  Resheph, 
and  Telah  his  son 
and  Tahan  his  son  :  " — 

Here,  according  to  the  LXX,  there  is  another  transition 
to  Ephraim's  immediate  family,  marked  by  the  dative  case,  and 
by  putting  the  word  "  son  "  in  a  different  order :  thus,  verbatim^ 
"  To  Laadan  his  son, 
a  son  Ammihud, 
a  son  Elishama, 
a  son  Non, 
a  son  Jehoshua,  his  sons." 

Browne  conjectures  that  the  *'  L  "  in  the  name  Laadan  is 
merely  the  Hebrew  preposition,  corresponding  to  the  dative 
case  which  is  given  in  the  Greek :  so  that  the  name  shoidd 
read  ''  to  Adan  "  or  •'  Edan."  And  as  the  "  D  "  and  ''  R  "  in 
Hebrew  are  often  mistaken  for  one  another  (being  much  alike) 
this  Edan  is  the  same  as  Eran,  or  Eden  according  to  the  LXX, 
one  of  Ephraim's  sons  in  Num.  xxvi.  36.  Every  one  knows  that 
names,  in  so  ancient  a  language  as  the  Hebrew,  are  peculiarly 
exposed  to  changes  at  the  hands  of  transcribers  or  translators  ; 
and  in  this  instance  the  Septuagint  seems  to  indicate,  though  not 
to  clear  up  altogether,  some  mistake  with  regard  to  the  name 
that  is  rendered  Laadan. 

Browne's  conjecture,  therefore,  is  a  highly  reasonable  one, 
well  supported  by  analogous  cases ;  and  we  may  complete  the 
genealogy  thus  : 


112  APPENDIX. 

"  To  Edan  or  Eran  (Ephraim's)  son  was 

Ammihud  his  son, 
Elishama  his  son, 
Non  his  son, 
Jelioshua  his  son." 

(To  an  English  reader  I  may  illustrate  the  supposed  change 
in  the  name  Laadan  somewhat  in  this  way.  Suppose  the  word 
to  have  been  written  originally  L  D  N.  A  translator  into 
Greek,  knowing  that  the  L  is  often  a  mere  prefix  meaning  2o, 
and  guided  perhaps  by  a  traditional  interpretation,  would  render 
the  name  To  aDaN  ;  and  (to  make  all  sure)  would  put  the 
original  LaaDaN  in  the  margin.  Afterward  the  marginal  read- 
ing would  creep  into  the  text  without  displacing  the  sign  of  the 
dative  ;  and  thus  it  would  come  to  be,  as  it  stands  now  in  the 
LXX,  To  LaaDaN.  For  examples  of  the  confusion  often  made 
between  the  Hebrew  D  and  R,  see  1  Chron.  i.  6,  7  ;  where 
Riphath  reads  in  the  margin  Diphath,  and  Dodanim  becomes 
Rodanim.  So,  in  ver.  30,  Hadad  in  the  margin  reads  Hadar. 
For  other  changes  of  the  kind,  Homam  into  Heman,  Amram 
into  Plemdan,  Zimri  into  Zabdi,  Chelubai  into  Caleb,  Eliada 
into  Beeliada,  &c.,  &;c.,  see  marginal  readings  of  1  Chron.  i.-x.) 

But  however  this  may  be,  the  special  absurdities  so  trium- 
phantly paraded  by  Bishop  Colenso,  only  serve  to  prove  his 
own  fatuity.  Take  the  list  merely  as  it  stands  in  the  English 
version,  and  it  is  obvious  at  a  glance,  that  Shuthelah,  Ezer, 
iElcad,  Beriah  are  sons  of  Ephraim,  separated  only  by  the  in- 
cidental mention  of  the  lineal  descendants  of  Shuthelah,  not  by 
any  intervention  of  seven  generations  or  seventeen  generations, 
such  as  the  Bishop  supposes.  It  is  also  worth  noticing  that  the 
fact  of  the  two  sons  being  slain  by  some  men  of  Gath  "  horn  in 
the  land  "  suggests  at  once  an  idea  very  probable  in  itself,  but 
disdainfully  rejected  by  Bishop  Colenso,  namely,  that  some  of 
Jacob's  former  neighbors,  following  his  example,  had  migrated 
from  Canaan  to  Goshen  :  so  that  the  seventy  who  went  with 
him  into  Egypt  were  gradually  reenforced  by  a  numerous  immi* 


APPENDIX.  1 1  3 

gration.  Tlic  incidental  mention  of  that  "  daughter,  Sheran, 
who  built  Belh-horon,"  &c.,  would  indicate,  that  occasionally, 
among  the  descendants  of  Jacob,  there  was  a  return  to  Canaan : 
perhaps  in  consequence  of  intermarriage  with  settlers  or  visitors 
from  that  region.  So  far  from  proving  therefore  any  such  ab- 
surdities as  Bishop  Colcnso  charges  upon  it,  the  genealogy  in 
Chronicles  really  throws  much  light  upon  facts  which  Moses,  in 
his  brief  narrative,  does  not  see  fit  to  explain. 

The  only  difficulty  that  remains,  namely,  (as  it  appears  in 
our  version,)  the  nine  generations  between  Ephraim  and  Joshua, 
disappears  entirely,  if  Browne's  conjecture  be  admitted.  For 
in  that  case,  Joshua  stands  as  the  fifth  from  Ephraim  :  while  in 
the  two  other  families,  Shuthelah  II.  is  the  seventh  and  Tahan 
the  fourth  ;  all  which  is  probable  and  consistent. 

This  interpretation  also  enables  us  to  reconcile  the  genealogy 
in  1  Chron.  with  that  which  is  given  in  Num.  xxvi.  35,  36  : 
but  for  this  I  refer  the  reader  to  Browne,  p.  307  :  "*  a  writer,  by 
the  wa}',  who,  if  he  had  had  the  good  fortune  to  have  a  diceresis 
over  his  name,  or  a  hcrg  at  the  end  of  it,  would  be  in  much 
higher  honor  among  u?,  and  would  be  more  diligently  read  than 
at  present  is  the  case.  We,  who  speak  the  English  tongue, 
have  a  wonderful  veneration  for  the  long  names  and  sliowy 
learning  of  tlie  Germans.  The  plain  home-spun  of  sound  Eng- 
lish good  sense  we  care  little  for. 

I  may  add,  in  passing,  that  German  commentators,  whom 

*  I  will  give  the  passage  verbatim,  from  the  LXX  :  in  which  the  reader 
will  note  that  the  cRaX  of  our  version  reads  eDeN. 

"  And  these  sons  of  Ephraim.  To  Suthala,  the  people  Suthalai.  To 
Tanach,  the  people  Tanachi :  these  sons  of  Suthala.  To  Eden,  the  people 
Edcni.     These  sons  of  Ephraim  by  their  census." 

Here  Eden  is  mentioned,  like  the  Edan  or  Laadan  of  Chronicles,  in  an 
abrupt  way,  as  if  he  were  too  well  known  to  require  particular  description : 
which  would  be  natural  enough  if  he  was  a  son  of  Ephraim  and  the  ancestor 
of  Joshua,  but  would  otherwise  be  unaccountable.  The  reader  will  also 
note  the  exact  correspondence  of  the  words  To  eDeX  with  the  Hebrew  LDN 
mentioned  above. 


1 14  APPENDIX. 

Bishop  Colenso  delights  to  quote  so  far  as  they  serve  his  pur- 
pose of  making  tlie  Scriptures  ridiculous,  may  be  very  learned 
men,  and  prodigiously  profound,  but  are  by  no  means  the  best 
authorities  to  go  to,  if  we  wish  to  have  light  shed  upon  a  dif- 
ficulty in  Scripture.  They  are  critics  of  that  kind  who,  if  they 
do  not  love  darkness  rather  than  light,  yet  undoubtedly  show  a 
fondness  for  certain  shades  of  obscurity.  They  are  so  absorbed 
in  remote  speculations,  that  they  seldom  see  what  is  immediate- 
ly before  their  eyes.  This  is  the  case  with  Kuenen,  whom 
Bishop  Colenso  cites,  p.  158,  in  connection  with  the  genealogy 
of  Joshua.  The  theory  that  he  broaches  is  only  a  shade  less 
stupid  than  that  of  the  Bishop  himself.  Not  having  his  work 
before  me,  however,  I  am  not  by  any  means  sure  that  his  mean- 
ing is  correctly  given.  At  least,  in  the  case  of  others  whom  the 
Bishop  quotes  and  answers,  he  sometimes  selects  the  point  of 
attack  :  choosing  their  feebl-e  and  improbable  explanations,  and 
omitting  those  which  shed  some  light  on  the  subject.  Whether 
this  has  been  done  in  the  case  of  Kuenen  I  have  not  as  yet 
ascej^tained. 


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I.    On  Mirades  as  Evidences  of  CJiris- \  II.  L.  MANSEL,  B,   D.,   Wayn- 
tianity.  )     fletc  Professor  of  Moral  and  ile- 

taphysical  Philosophy,  Oxford ; 
late  Tutor  and  Fellow  of  St. 
John's  Coll. 
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Christianity.  )      D.,  Lord  Bishop  of  Killaloe. 

IIL   Prophecy A.   M'CxiUL,   D.D.,  Professor  of 

Hebrew  and  Old  Testament  Ex- 
egesis, King's  College,  London, 
and  Prebendary  of  Bt.  Paul's. 

IV.  Ideology  and  Subscription F.  C.  COOKE,  M.A.,  Chaplain  in 

Ordinary  to  the  Queen,  one  of 
H.  M.  Inspectors  of  Schools, 
Prebendary  of  St.  Paul's,  and 
Examining  Chaplain  to  the 
Bishop  of  Lincoln. 
v.   The  3£o8aic  Record  of  Creation...    A.  M'CAUL,  D.D.,  Professor  of 

Hebrew  and  Old  Testament 
Exegesis,  King's  College,  Lon- 
don, and  Prebendary"  of  St. 
Paul's. 
YI.  On  the  Genuineness  and  Authenti-  )  GEORGE  RAWLINSON,  M.A., 
city  of  the  Pentateuch.  J      Camden    Professor  of  Ancient 

History,  Oxford ;  and  late  Fel- 
low and  Tutor  of  Exeter  Coll. 

VIL  Inspiration, EDWARD  HAROLD  BRO'WNE, 

B.  D.,  Norrisian  Professor  of 
Divinity  at  Cambridge,  and 
Canon  'Residentiary  of  Exeter 
Cathedral. 

VIII.    The  Death  of  Christ. WILLIAM   THOMSON,    D.  D., 

Lord  Bishop  of  Gloucester  and 
Bristol. 
IX.  Scripture  and  its  Interpretation. . .     CHARLES  JOHN  ELLICOTT, 

B.  D.,  Dean  of  Exeter,  and  Pro- 
fessor of  Divinity,  King's  Col- 
lege, London. 


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HoM£  Journal. 

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Cariyle's  Essays. 

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volume.    1  large  vol.  Svo.    Portrait.    Cloth,  $2 ;  sheep,  $2  50. 

Jeffrey's  Essays, 

Contributions  to  the  Edinburgh  Eeview.  By  Francis  Jeffrey.  The  four 
volumes  complete  in  one.  1  very  large  vol.  Svo.  Portrait.  Cloth,  $2  ;  sheep, 
$2  50. 

Macaiilay's  Essays, 

Essays,  Critical  and  Miscellaneous.  By  T.  Babington  Macaulay.  New  and 
Eevised  edition.    1  very  large  vol.  Svo.     Portrait.    Cloth,  $2 ;  sheep,  $2  50. 

Mackintosli's  Essays. 

The  Miscellaneous  "Works  of  the  Eight  Honorable  Sir  James  Mackintosh. 
The  three  volumes  in  one.  1  vol.  large  Svo.  Portrait.  Cloth,  $2;  sheep, 
$2  50. 

Sydney  Smith's  Works. 

The  Works  of  the  Eev.  Sydney  Smith.  Three  volumes  complete  in  one.  1 
large  vol.  Svo.    Portrait.    Cloth,  $1  25 ;  sheep,  $1  75. 

Talfourd's  and  Steplien's  Essays. 

Critical  and  Miscellaneous  Writings  of  T.  Noon  Talfourd,  author  of  "  Ion," 
tfec.  Critical  and  Miscellaneous  Essays  of  James  Stephen.  In  1  vol.  large  8to. 
Portrait.    Cloth,  $125;   sheep,  $1  75. 

Wilson's  Essays. 

The  Eecreations  of  Christopher  North  [Prof.  .John  Wilson.]  Complete  In  ' 
▼ol.  large  Svo.    Portrait     Clotrt,  $1  25;  sheep.  $1  75. 


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